Symphony
by Kurt
Summary: After the lake house, Clarice faces a miserable future in the FBI, until she is offered a private case to solve. But things are not always as easy as they seem -- particularly when Dr. Lecter sees a chance to create a symphony.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: here's an idea I'd had for an original fic. It wasn't going anywhere as an original, but revamping it made it fit nicely into the Lecter universe...so...let's see what happened to Clarice after the end of 'Hannibal'. Follows movie canon. _

Clarice sat down at her desk and sighed. She hated this little office; it was practically a closet. The walls were concrete, painted an icky yellow color. The yellow blankness was broken up by only one small window, which would not open, and gave her a pleasant view of the parking lot outside. It reminded her of nothing so much as a prison cell.

And that was apt, because since she had been discovered outside Paul Krendler's lake house, the FBI had indeed sentenced her. Nothing so much as a trial, or even a chance to present her side. She'd been taken off active duty, spent a few months in limbo, and then been reassigned to the Academy, where she helped teach forensic pathology to both FBI trainees and policemen from other agencies. Which, in short, meant she dragged buckets of blood and cadavers up to a classroom, where she got to see whom among the student body would be horrified by the sight. She also got to take cadavers out back, shoot them, and stage simulated murders for the trainees to investigate.

She hated it.

On an intellectual level, she understood that training the new generations of FBI agents was important, and there were always the oddballs like herself who didn't get green around the gills when presented with a pair of severed arms. On an emotional level – someone other than her ought to do it. She wanted to be a hunter, not a teacher. The events of Dr. Lecter's little quarrel with Mason Verger had left her feeling unfairly stained, and she wanted the chance to recover her good name. She couldn't do that as the FBI Academy's Igor. Watching the trainees practice at what she really wanted to be doing galled her. Knowing that they would get the chance to actually use it was worse.

The worst part was that there seemed to be no way out of it. She'd filed requests and sent emails, and only succeeded in adding a little to the massive store of paperwork that life in the FBI revolved around. It seemed that this was her sentence, and there would no word from the governor.

The doctor himself had vanished like smoke. No taunting letters, no bottles of wine in her car – nothing. The FBI and other agencies all actively sought him, and they knew he was wounded. She knew that far better than any of them. The sight of Dr. Lecter chopping off his thumb – and most of the meat attached to it – in order to escape the handcuffs kept replaying in her mind – usually in the middle of the night, after waking up in a sweaty haze.

Like any prison, Clarice's basement office was rather quiet and routine. A new load of cadavers would be coming in. It would be Clarice's grisly task to drag them out to the mock city the Academy used for training and decide what scene of horror she could inflict on her students this time. There was a house no one lived in, a street corner that no cars drove down, and an office building empty of workers in which she could set her scene. She would arrange the bodies as if they had lived or worked there. A gangland slaying here; a sidewalk murder there; a domestic violence that turned deadly after that. Basically, she decided where to put the bodies and and then blew off their faces with a shotgun or busted a cap in their unmoving hearts. All in the name of higher education.

Now, the clock was turning towards noon, and she had the weighty decision to make – eat at the base at Quantico, or perhaps go out for lunch to the free world? The food here was cheap, but institutional and tasteless. On the other hand, she'd gone out a lot lately, and it was beginning to hurt her bank account.

The phone on her desk uttered it electronic squawk, and she stared at it for a moment. There were weeks her phone stayed silent for days. Miss Popularity she was not. But an FBI agent she was, so she scooped up the receiver.

"Starling," she rasped.

"Agent Starling, this is Joan, at the front desk. There's a woman here to see you."

Clarice paused for a moment. Who was it? 'Delia would have just called her cell phone. She had few other friends in the FBI, and fewer female friends. All the same, there was only one way to find out.

"Be there in a minute. Thanks, Joan," she said, and proceeded to the front of the building. 'Front desk' was a bit of a misnomer; there was a large, glassed-in pen in front which Starling tended to think of as the secretarial cages. Visitors waited in chairs near the pen.

Sitting in one of them was a blonde woman. At first glance, Starling made her for mid-to-late twenties, maybe early thirties. An expert hand with makeup, which could throw off guesses at age. She wore gold knot earrings and a simple gold chain around her neck. Her suit was well-cut without being ostentatious. Her eyes were large and bright and suggested intelligence, but her face was sallow and tired under its cosmetic disguises.

She rose from the chair when she saw Clarice and extended a hand. Starling glanced at it for a moment: soft hands, nails well cared for in a conservative shade of polish.

"Hello, Agent Starling," the woman said pleasantly. Her voice sounded educated but tough. Her accent was a little more posh than Starling's own, but most people's were. Virginia, Starling guessed. "My name is Sarah Hansen. I'm an assistant Commonwealth's Attorney from Hopewell County. I'd like to speak with you."

Starling smiled graciously and took the hand. Hansen's grip was a proper ladies' handshake: just shy of being jellyfish.

"Pleased to meet you, Ms. Hansen. What can I do for you?"

She continued observing the woman as she spoke, trying to get a feel for this woman and what she wanted. _Commonwealth's Attorney _meant she was a Virginia prosecutor; prosecutors from other states usually called themselves _district attorneys._ Earrings, power-femme suit, wussy-girl handshake, okay. Starling made a quick calculation: small-town aristocracy. In slavery days she would have been a plantation owner's débutante daughter.

"It's a bit of a complex situation," Hansen said pleasantly. "Shall we discuss it over lunch, perhaps? My treat, of course."

"Thank you," Clarice said. "All right. Do you have a place in mind?"

"Not really," Hansen admitted. "I'm not familiar with the area."

"What sort of lunch did you have in mind?" Clarice asked.

Sarah Hansen shrugged. "Someplace reasonably nice," she said. "TGI Friday's, someplace like that. Preferably somewhere where we could talk. Nothing too fancy."

Clarice thought, "There's Bistro Bethem, Houlihan's, or Vinny's Grill and Pizzeria," she offered.

"Houlihan's sounds fine," Hansen said easily. "I'm not much for gourmet food, but I'm not really feeling like pizza."

Clarice nodded amiably. She found herself liking this woman. Since she knew the area, she volunteered to drive. The restaurant was about what they wanted – nice, but not chokingly fancy. They would be able to talk in privacy. Hansen studied the menu for a few moments and ordered a salad; Clarice plumped for a chicken sandwich.

After the drinks had been served, Sarah Hansen cleared her throat and smiled. "So," she said. "I suppose you want to know what all this is about."

Clarice took a sip of her iced tea. "Well, yes, I do," she said.

"Fair enough." Hansen took a breath. "Agent Starling, I need you to find my sister."

"Your sister? Is she missing?" Clarice parried.

"Sort of. Not exactly. Have you ever heard...of my sister's case? Her name is Claire. Claire Hansen. It was all we could hear about down where I'm from, but I don't know if the news got that far up here."

Clarice pondered for a moment. Claire Hansen, Claire Hansen...no. It didn't ring a bell.

"I'm not familiar with it, no," she said neutrally.

Sarah's mouth twitched. "Two years ago, my stepmother was murdered," she began. "Claire and her boyfriend did it. Both of them were...well...odd ducks. Claire was always into black clothes, wearing pentacles, weird gothic music...that sort of thing. Some people thought she was a devil worshiper. She said she wasn't, that she worshiped the Earth or something silly like that." Her mouth quirked again.

"I see," Clarice said calmly.

"They were both arrested, both jailed, both convicted. No bail. My father wouldn't pay it, anyway. Not after what had happened. Course, Claire said she hadn't done it, that her boyfriend did it. Whatever." Sarah Hansen rolled her eyes and almost pulled off the sarcastic dismissal. The tight line of her lips and gritted teeth told a different story.

"Anyway," she said, after a noticeable pause, "of course they appealed, both of them. His appeal got turned down. Hers...didn't."

"New trial?" Clarice guessed. That might be it; the kid might have decided to light out rather than wait for her new trial. It was all too common. But what would that have to do with her?

Sarah Hansen shook her head. "Overturned. Speedy trial violations, so they said. Our county court said the delays were okay, the court of appeals disagreed. As of two weeks ago, the Virginia Supreme Court refused to hear the county's appeal, and she was released about a week ago."

Clarice nodded again and shifted her legs. "And you want me to find her?"

Sarah nodded.

"I read about you. You found Hannibal Lecter. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard for you to find an eighteen-year-old with no money and no...," she paused. "Support. She couldn't have gotten far. Now I know nothing's for free, and I don't expect you to work for free. We'd pay you two thousand dollars a month, cash. It's our money – my family's – not the county. Expenses, too. If you got her within a month, we'll sweeten that pot with another ten thousand cash. Obviously you'd continue working at the FBI. I'd imagine that's how you'd access the law enforcement computer networks."

"The FBI doesn't exactly smile on part-time employment," Clarice pointed out.

Sarah was unmoved. "This can all be done privately. Nobody needs to know, except you and us."

Clarice didn't say anything, but her lack of confidence must have shown. That made sense; a good prosecutor would know how to read people.

"That's not all we can do, either. If you help us, we'll help you. I'm a prosecutor, my brother is a state trooper, and my father is a judge. We know a few people in Hopewell County who retired from the FBI. We'll do whatever we can do get you back in the field," added the other woman.

Clarice stopped at that and pondered. Obviously, Sarah Hansen wanted her sister back very badly. But it was pretty obvious that she planned no loving reunion; the twists of her face and obvious anger made that clear. Was this some sort of blood feud? She didn't like the sound of that, and she liked the idea of being caught in it less. She could see the _Tattler _headline now: _FBI'S KILLING MACHINE NOW RICH FAMILY'S ATTACK DOG. _ That made her think of Deputy Mogli, and how easily he had sold out his morals for Verger bucks. Not her. Not now, not ever.

"That's an interesting offer," Clarice began neutrally. "But I guess I have to ask. From what you've told me, I don't see that there's federal jurisdiction. Sounds like straight state to me. And I'm a little curious why you seem to want to go after her personally. If you want to find her, you could just drop a material witness warrant on her."

Sarah Hansen shook her head. "I don't have time for that," she said thinly. "I need her now."

Clarice took a sip of iced tea to give herself a moment to think. "I guess that's another thing," she said contemplatively. "You don't even seem to _like _her very much. No offense, but you don't hide it very well. I can tell by your face."

Sarah nodded slowly. "I don't," she admitted. "Not after what she did, after what it did to my father...," she sighed, and steeled herself visibly. Then she reached up to her head for a moment. She removed a few bobby pins from the side of her head just above her ear, then the other. Then she tugged at her hair, and it slid free.

Sarah Hansen held the hair – the _wig – _in one hand. Her head below was almost bare; her own hair was stringy and sparse and extremely thin. Her scalp was clearly visible under the few threadlike, almost translucent strands of hair that she had. Now the tiredness and sallow look made much more sense. Now that she looked, she could see bags under the other woman's eyes, and her face seemed jaundiced under her makeup. Clarice's eyes widened, but she clamped her jaws shut lest she say anything stupid. Satisfied that she had made her impression, Sarah put the wig back on and set it to rights.

"I had no idea," Clarice said.

Sarah smiled tightly. "For what I paid for that wig, I would hope so. I have leukemia, Agent Starling. I've had it for four years. Back before...well, all this started, Claire got tested for me, to see if she could be a bone marrow donor. And she could. She's the only one in my family who is a match. They they managed to get it into remission. I was cancer-free for a long time – through the murder and the trial and all that. But it came back a few months ago, and it's bad. Very bad. I'm gutting my way through chemo, but it's come back with a vengeance. My clock is ticking. The doctors tell me the best time for a transplant would be in the next few months." Her voice shook and thickened, but she carried on, which Starling could respect. "From what I can tell, I've got somewhere between six and nine months total...maybe a year. Not much beyond that. So I don't have a lot of time to waste."

"I need my sister. I need her now. I need her to do this donation for me. You're right, I don't particularly like her, but we'll deal with that when it comes. Right now, I don't even know where she is. What I need you for is to find her. You're a good sleuth, you're smart, you're available, unless you'd rather haul buckets of blood and bodies around at the Academy. I'll pay you well, and I'll do everything I can for you. I just don't have a lot of cards to play. The fact is, Starling...I don't have a lot of time, and I need your help."

The other woman's eyes seemed haunted. Clarice felt a jolt of mixed horror and sympathy, imagining staring down the black tunnel that the other woman was facing. Six months, or a year left to live? How could anyone turn their back? She made her decision in a split second – the only one she could make. The old urge to put things right was strong as ever. She leaned forward and touched the other woman's arm.

"Okay, Ms. Hansen. I'll find your sister."


	2. Big Cat

_Author's note: Here's another chapter for you. Reviews are appreciated. _

Clarice Starling stepped outside of the building she had worked in for so long and glanced into the autumn sky. It was the same building, same base, same miserable job. It was early November, and the air was brisk and cool, but pleasantly so after the searing heat of that summer. But yet everything felt different. She felt renewed and strong. The wind felt livelier, the air tasted cleaner, the sun seemed brighter – _everything _felt right. She felt invigorated. It might have been her sentence that had been

She had a case again.

It wasn't an FBI case, but it was a case nonetheless. She'd have to be careful with it – as she had told Sarah Hansen, the FBI did not smile on part-time employment, and something like this could get her in trouble. Yet she didn't feel like she was doing something dishonest. She felt good. It was good to have a case again.

Sarah Hansen had agreed to send her sister's prison and jail records as soon as she could. Clarice had suggested she send it to her home email account. She didn't think that the FBI would get too angry about it. Hobby cases were not completely unheard of in the FBI, and she could always pass it off as that.

She wasn't thinking too much about the money, although that always helped. Sure, she wouldn't turn it down, but it wasn't her primary motivation. No, she had a woman to find, a life to save, things to put right.

_I am on the job, _Clarice thought, and got into her car. Even the Mustang seemed to be more fun again. She felt her heart race as she punched the accelerator and headed out onto the highway. The ride home seemed dizzy, the world full of sunshine and possibilities and brisk air. Damn, she felt good, and before she knew it she was wheeling into the driveway. She exploded from the car and headed towards her front door with the sure pace of a natural-born hunter, crossing her kitchen and heading straight for her computer.

Her email had three new messages. All were from Sarah Hansen. All had attachments. A trial transcript, further jail and prison records, and the like. Clarice grinned broadly and saved them to her hard drive. She preferred working on the computer. It was easier to make copies and if you happened to spill coffee on the paper copies it wasn't the end of the world.

In order to keep everything together, Clarice put the papers she had been given on her scanner and set about the business of scanning them into PDF's. A folder on her hard drive called Hansen Case served to keep everything together and organized. As long as everything was together and organized, she could deal with it.

She had to fiddle with the PDF's to make them editable, but she liked them that way. She could make notes on them. During her years in the orphanage, Clarice had learned to use the competitive exam as her weapon, and she was a prodigious note-taker. You never knew when you might look back on everything, see some note you had written, and the whole thing would fall together.

The mug shot showed a sixteen-year-old girl with dark hair, possibly dyed, rather fair skin, and startlingly green eyes. She wore way too much eye makeup and an odd, darkish lipstick. Starling thought it was about what a sixteen-year-old girl who had never actually seen dried blood before would assume it looked like. The prison photos were the same, except there was no makeup. Starling eyed that photo carefully; it was the most recent picture she had of her target. She'd have to ask the Hansens if they had any more.

The jail records were more complete than the prison records. Clarice supposed that was because the Hansens probably had a lot more pull with the local county jail than the state prison. There were no letters between Claire Hansen and her attorney, but there were a few letters to the family, and to some of her friends. Some had replied. Some hadn't.

She needed to get into this kid's head. The jail letters weren't going to be that much help, Clarice thought. She needed to figure out who Claire Hansen was now; that would give her a better idea of _where _she was now. Then again, Clarice thought, was there anything in the prison record about her release? Checking it was a little sparse. The forwarding address was her attorney's address, and she'd asked for a bus ticket to Richmond. The prison had given her the phone numbers and addresses for social-service agencies there.

She tried a few well-known search engines, plus a few more that the general public didn't know about. Her reward was jack diddly. Claire Hansen had not tried to get a driver's license, signed a lease, or gotten a job in the week since her release. Clarice scowled at the monitor as if it was thwarting her. Well, had she really expected it to be that easy?

A single knock at the door separating her side of the duplex from Delia's made her head turn.

"C'mon in," Clarice said, staring at her monitor.

Ardelia Mapp poked her head in. "Hi," she said. "Thought you were gonna help me cook."

Clarice grinned broadly. "Sorry, Delia," she said in a distinctly unsorry tone. "I have a case."

Ardelia pushed her way in and crowded over to the computer. "They moved you off the Academy?"

"Nope. Private."

Her roommate raised a dark eyebrow. "What do you mean, private?"

It didn't take too long to explain the situation and case of Sarah Hansen. Ardelia pursed her lips.. She opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again, clearly weighing what she was going to say.

"What?" Clarice asked.

"This prosecutor wants you to find her sister," Ardelia said in tones of careful neutrality.

"Yep," Clarice said. "I told you. She needs bone marrow."

"That's true," Ardelia allowed. "I guess my question is, why is she having you do it?"

Clarice scowled. "Because I'm good at what I do," she said. "Because I find people. I found Hannibal Lecter, remember? I think I'm up to finding an eighteen-year-old goth with a murder rap."

"And what happens when you do?" Ardelia challenged. "What do you do? "

Clarice shrugged. "My job is to find her," she said.

"And do what? Arrest her? Thing is, I don't see an arrest warrant here. I see _no _federal connection. You could be leaving yourself wide open."

"To what?" Clarice said.

"A lawsuit, for one," Ardelia said. "You're doing this on your own. The FBI doesn't have to protect you for trouble you get into on your own. Bad press. Trouble with OPR."

Clarice threw her hands in the air, irritated. "For what? Finding criminals? That's my _job." _

_"_Your job is at the Academy," Ardelia reminded her. "I know you don't like it."

"I hate it. I drag around bodies. It sucks. It's not what I was meant to do. This is...damn, 'Delia., I don't think you get it. This woman needs bone marrow. She's gonna die if she doesn't get it, and she needs it in the next couple of months.. No fucking around, no technicalities. Real, honest-to-God dead, and for what? I could save a _life _here. Can't you see that?"

"I know that," Ardelia said. "Believe me – I'm your friend here. But what are you going to do when you find this girl? Slap cuffs on her and drag her to the hospital? You can't _do _that. Find her, sure, great. What if she sues you?"

"For what?" Clarice stared at her roommate disbelievingly.

"Harassment? Stalking? Deprivation of civil rights under color of law? There are ex-cops doing time for things like that. Or maybe she sues you in civil court and gets a judgment. Or maybe she goes to the papers and just craps all over you there."

"I'm not going to do any of that," Clarice said dismissively. "Believe me, I know all about how to make a righteous bust. How come you're worried about some criminal's rights, anyway? Somebody's _life _is at stake. How about Sarah Hansen's rights?"

"That's just it," Ardelia said. "You keep talking about this girl, this...,"

"Claire?" Clarice asked.

"That's it. Claire. You keep talking about her like she's a criminal."

"She _was, _in fact, convicted, counselor," Clarice said drily.

"And overturned, you said."

"Yes. She's still guilty."

Ardelia shook her head. "That's the problem. Not in the eyes of the law, she's not. It happens. And the one I am worried, about, Clarice, is _you. _You screw this up, you could be charged yourself."

"I won't. All I have to do is find her, remember?" Clarice said.

Ardelia chuckled. "Oh, I'm not afraid of that," she said softly. "I know you'll find her. I'm afraid of what will happen after you do."

Clarice made a short pushing gesture. "After is not my problem," she insisted. "Look. I'm gonna blow in sick tomorrow and go down there, talk to the family, get some more to go on. Do some legwork."

"You're a big girl," Ardelia said. "Just be careful. That's all I'm asking."

"I will. Look." Clarice grabbed the release paperwork and brandished it at the black woman. "According to the papers, she was released and given a bus ticket to Richmond, right?"

"Yes," Ardelia said. "So?"

"So," Clarice concluded, "she's got no money, no place to stay, no clothes, and as far as I know she doesn't know anyone there. there are only a few places she could be." She began to tick off choices on her fingers as she spoke.

"She's either on the street in Richmond, in jail for some petty offense, in a homeless shelter, or turning tricks for some pimp. If she's in jail, then all I have to do is post her bail. If she's in a homeless shelter or on the street, she'll probably do anything I want her to for a good meal or a night's sleep in a real bed. If she's turning tricks, she'll probably throw herself at me so that her pimp won't whack her ass with a wire hanger. Either way, I find her, I do my job, then, hell, I don't know. I'll point her to the social workers and they can do their thing. The important thing is to find her and make her do the right thing."

From the set of Ardelia's jaw, she did not totally agree. "Okay," she said, clearly not convinced. Clarice exhaled slowly.

"All right, well, look," Clarice said. "Let's work on dinner, how bout?"

"That sounds good." Delia's tone was carefully neutral. Reluctantly, Clarice abandoned her computer and papers for Ardelia's kitchen.

In deference to her Jamaican and Gullah ancestors, Ardelia was preparing what Clarice thought of as Throat Scorching Chicken, and the preparation of the food cooled the tensions between the two. Silence held sway as she mashed up the peppers and the chicken, but it was a comfortable silence. It smelled good, anyhow.

As the chicken cooked, Ardelia offered her a tight smile and sipped at her beer.

"Look," she said regretfully. "I know you want to do this, and I understand why, and I'll help you as much as I can. But you just watch yourself, that's all. You're great at finding people. I know you'll do it. I just don't want you to end up swinging in the wind over it."

"I'lll be fine, Ardelia," Clarice said, softening her tone. "I know I gotta tread carefully. But this...this means something to me. And it's gonna be easy. I'll do it right. I promise."

...

Dr. Lecter had once considered Clarice Starling akin to a cub. He had once told this to Barney that she was charming the way a cub was charming, one that only knew how to wrestle with other cubs, and that could not be played with later. Later had come; she had successfully tracked him to Verger's farm. She'd rescued him, to be sure, but despite that fact, it had become quite clear that the cub had indeed grown into a big cat, and her claws and her speed and her hunter's instinct could be a grave threat to him.

At first, of course, he had needed to see to other things; he'd found a doctor who owed him a favor to reattach his thumb. There was still a scar there, and his thumb was still stiff and caused him pain. The pain he could deal with. He was able to obtain Vicodin and other drugs with no more difficulty than purchasing sugar at the corner grocery store, and when he could not have them or wanted to assure himself that he was not becoming dependent on them, his own will sufficed.

But he had a large, visible scar now, and according to his estimations he only had perhaps thirty percent function of the reattached thumb. The doctor who had reattached it had told him that a large measure of his returned function would depend on his own efforts. That did not frighten him; he was not afraid to exercise his hand until it throbbed with pain and his forehead was wet with sweat. But no matter how hard he worked his wounded hand, it was not what it had been. Worst of all, he could hear a noticeable fault in his playing of the piano.

This could not be allowed to happen again.

The cub had grown into a big cat. Such was life. Since Dr. Lecter could not reverse time and make her small again, he would need to find other means. He needed to bell the cat.

The mice in the old fable had agreed that it would be a a sound idea to bell the cat, but no one had been courageous enough to actually do it. Dr. Lecter did not suffer from this problem. He had been hiding in southern Pennsylvania, moving from rented home to rented home, and Clarice Starling's home had been within his reach. With a pair of workman's coveralls, a pickup truck, a dirty ball cap he rather disliked, and a clipboard, he had scouted it out, pretending to read her meter and scribble meaningless symbols on his clipboard. There was no alarm, which surprised and gratified him.

Eventually, his persistence had paid off when Ardelia Mapp had left her bedroom window unlocked one fine summer day. The neighborhood was one of working folk, and almost deserted during the day. No one had noticed the man in the overalls and clipboard and it had taken only a second to slide the window open and enter the house. He had made his way down to the basement, where he had free access both to the phone wiring of the duplex and Clarice's side of the house, through her basement entrance.

The device Dr. Lecter had attached to her phone line had cost him a fair amount of money, but it had been well worth it. It consisted of a computerized device attached to an inexpensive mobile phone. The wiring in Starling's home was quite old – old as the duplex itself – and it had been simple enough to wire the bug into the phone system. The device itself he had attached to the side of the rafters and then wired into the house's main current. The impedance on the line was quite low; the device was designed to be the best and most efficient bug of its kind.

And the device worked exceptionally well. Any number she called from her home phone was recorded, as were the calls themselves. The mobile phone had access to the Internet, although it was costly and the connection slow, but it was, Dr. Lecter reflected, far better than even the federal government had ten years ago. Every night the device would email a list of dialed numbers to a free email address based in the Ukraine. The calls were digitized and took much longer to upload and download, and they went to another free email account. He could top up the phone via the Internet from anywhere, but the plan was quite expensive. But it was well worth it for the opportunity to hear her voice.

He had also carefully installed a software program on her computer which would send him copies of her emails and her Web habits, and what programs she had run. He could also obtain remote access to it and see what files she might have on her home computer. He knew she was quite skilled with computers, more so than he, and he had expected that she would eventually find it. So far, she had not, which rather surprised him. All the better. Dr. Lecter was no hacker, but he was a fiendishly bright man and enjoyed learning. He was well able to operate the apparatus he had obtained. The cat had been belled.

Dr. Lecter knew that he would have much better information if he had been able to obtain that sort of access to her place of work, but it was far too risky to attempt invading an FBI installation on a base full of armed Marines. Clarice Starling had also shown herself to be predictable as well as dangerous; she was conscientious and often brought work home. Conveniently for him, she had also developed the habit of checking her work email from her home computer, and he had obtained access to that, too, although he was quite leery about attempting to check it.

For a long time now, the FBI had done what Dr. Lecter could not do; they had caged their big cat and given it only dead mice to bat around. He knew well of the tedium of the Academy job, and of the attempts she had made to escape her cage. That gave him some comfort – both her presence in the cage and her attempts to escape it. Of all the FBI's profilers and mindhunters, only Clarice Starling had shown any real insight into him at all. He much preferred her where she was. Given time, she might finally give up on her quest and surrender her sword and shield. _Not in a thousand years, _that was what she had told him, but perhaps if she had given up, dispirited, then she might well be more pliable.

And so on as Clarice Starling helped cook her dinner, Dr. Lecter put down the squeeze ball he used to exercise his wounded hand, grimacing slightly at the ache, and turned his attention to his computer. He began tracing the complicated path of encrypted tunnels and proxy servers he used to safely access the bells he had placed on the cat.

The first report was her email. Dr. Lecter tilted his head in surprise and studied them carefully. The next was her Web habits. She had been searching for someone on the Web, it seemed. The last indicated that Clarice had created several PDF files. Downloading them took several minutes.

It took him a while to read them all, and he read them a second time. Clarice's prodigious notes helped him further. He almost had to laugh; it seemed that Clarice Starling, the brave warrior, had finally sold out.

After reading it again, he realized that was wrong. She had not sold out. The money would be a secondary reward for her. The real meaning in this would be her attempt to mold the world into an order more in keeping with her sense of justice. Saving the lambs, once again, although to do it she needed to find a family's black sheep. The irony struck him as droll.

Dr. Lecter reviewed the prison records, the trial transcripts, and all that he had. Clarice had a new lamb to save; a prosecutor, no less. Perhaps she was trying to get in with the courthouse crowd as her father had never done. Interesting, that. Surely Clarice was up to this challenge; if she had found _him, _she could surely find an eighteen-year-old woman with no money or other resources. He glanced at Claire Hansen's prison records again. She might give Clarice a challenge or two, but ultimately the game was tilted too much against her.

What would Clarice do if she found her prey and she refused to provide what Clarice wanted? That would be awfully fun to see. Effectively, Claire Hansen had the opportunity to murder her sister in complete legality. There, Dr. Lecter thought, would be a wonderfully droll irony: Clarice could hunt her prey, but could not force her preferred order upon the world – not unless she crossed over all the way, and simply became a mercenary. He tilted his head back and thought for a moment of the despair that this family would feel if they got what they had asked for but not what they wanted.

He reached back to remember Clarice's first visit to him. Comparing Claire Hansen to Catherine Martin was instructive. Catherine Martin had been a Senator's daughter, a child of the upper class. With a judge for a father, a prosecutor for a sister, and a state trooper for a brother, Claire Hansen could have been much the same. Yet fate had played her a different hand. The bonds had been sundered by the murder of the stepmother. Was Clarice so naïve as to think that the family would would deal kindly with their outcast when they found her? Would she do anything? He thought that she might accept it to a point, but no further. Where might that point lie, and would it likely be reached?

Dr. Lecter reached out with his bad hand for a a CD and put it into his CD player. He had chosen Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, one of the masterpieces of the Western world. It had been one of Beethoven's most ambitious works, and he had written it when he had been almost entirely deaf himself. The fourth movement, in particular, was one of his favorites. A symphony within a symphony, with four movements of its own.

_A symphony has four movements, _Dr. Lecter thought. _Perhaps I can craft my own symphony. _

Dr. Lecter leaned forward and felt a cool smile cross his lips. An idea was beginning to form behind the dark sparks in his eyes. He had once worked with Clarice _quid pro quo. _What about _mano a mano? _Perhaps it would be a valuable lesson for her. Perhaps more. The possibilities appealed to him. He, too, was tired of the low profile he had maintained. It was time to return to public life.

At the very least, it would be a lot of fun.


	3. Southern Comfort

Early the next morning, Clarice Starling called the FBI Academy and called in sick. The secretaries up front did not seem particularly interested in her illness. She advised Clarice that she would inform the professors of her absence and wished her well. With that, Clarice Starling was free from the drudgery of her job at the Academy to do what she had been born to do.

First, she had to head down to the Hansens's home in southern Virginia. It was going to be a lengthy drive, but that was okay. It was brisk outside, the way she liked it, and the Mustang could really open up on the highway. She was relatively confident that her FBI ID would spare her from tickets. But after all, hell, she had a case.

Her destination was Coltsburg, Virginia, the county seat of Hopewell County. She'd looked up both the town and county on the Internet last night, and it was the sort of place she knew without having actually seen it. A small town orbited by several smaller towns. Maybe twenty thousand people in the whole county. The courthouse was there, along with the jail and other accoutrements of justice.

Most of the people there were either working poor or blue-collar affluent. High school football games would be the big deal around there, and kids would hooraw up the back roads at night. The Hansens, she figured, would be up at the top of things; the dad a judge, Sarah Hansen, a prosecutor, her brother Jack a state trooper...and the weirdo little sister, who had apparently found herself a weirdo boyfriend, whacked her stepmother, and finished out the family roles in law by ending up in prison.

This, Clarice thought as she watched the Mustang's speedometer needle flirt with eighty, was pretty clear. Her job was to find the weirdo little sister. Once she found her, she'd take it from there. But one way or another, Clarice was going to set this right. Claire Hansen had done all the damage to her family that she was going to do. Not now that Clarice Starling was on the job.

According to the directions she'd gotten, it would be a good couple of hours down into southern Virginia. So for a while she just opened up the gas and let the Mustang do what it had been made to do. She whipped past cars just as easily as the yellow lines flashing by.

As long as the trip was, Clarice felt a small sense of disappointment when she saw her exit and had to pull off onto a small secondary road. Hopewell County was exactly like she'd expected: not many people, a few towns interspersed with woodsy areas. Coltsburg was not far away. She was planning to meet the judge at the county courthouse, where they might be able to grab lunch. Then she wanted a gander at the house, see what they might have of her things. After all, she reflected, it hadn't been until she looked in Fredrica Bimmel's closet that she realized that the diamond-shaped flayings on Kimberly Emberg's back had been darts, and thus she had realized that Buffalo Bill had to be a professional tailor.

The Hopewell County Courthouse was located right off the town square, with the large white columns that she sometimes thought were mandated by federal law to distinguish it from other buildings. She pulled the Mustang into a parking space and stared reflectively at the parking meters. No electronics, no magnetic cards, just the simple twist handle and mechanical innards type. Change came slow to places like these.

A few quarters bought her an hour and a half of parking time, which ought to be enough. She strode up the stairs to the courthouse itself. A deputy sheriff in a brown and tan uniform sat at a desk, and another stood by the door. Clarice had been in enough courthouses to know what to do. She walked up to the desk and smiled.

"Good morning, ma'am," the desk deputy said politely. "Can I help you?"

"Yessir, I believe you can," Clarice replied. "I'm Special Agent Starling." She displayed her ID. "I'm here to meet with Judge Hansen. I'm also armed, I thought you should know that."

"Yes, ma'am. We don't allow guns in the courthouse. We'll keep your piece in the security office. Second door right down the hall. Let me let 'em know you're coming." After handing her a visitor's pass, he took the microphone attached to his epaulet and spoke into it. Clarice nodded; that was pretty par for the course. Some places would let you carry your piece, some places wouldn't.

Another deputy, brown-haired and handsome, was working at the security office, which was not much more than a small cubbyhole with a large locking gun cabinet in it. He took the weapon, nodded appreciatively at it, and put it into the cabinet. In an accent much like her own he told her he'd keep it safe and Judge Hansen's chambers were on the fourth floor. Politely he directed her to the elevators. Another deputy guarded the desk controlling access to the judges' chambers, and he examined her pass and directed her to the fourth door down the hall.

Judge Hansen's chambers had his name on a brass plate on a well-polished wooden door. _Well, now I'm in with the courthouse crowd, _Clarice thought. She knocked at the door and waited. A few moments later, yet another deputy answered the door. This one seemed to be awfully young to her. Were they letting kids get to be deputies these days?

"Hi," she said. "I'm Clarice Starling. I'm here to see Judge Hansen."

"Oh, yes ma'am, you're on the list. Come right in." His voice had even more drawl than her own. He led her into the inner sanctum of the judge, which proved to be an oak-panelled office piled with law books and paperwork. It was dominated by a large desk with papers and a few more books scattered across it. Behind the desk sat the ruler of this domain.

Judge Gordon Hansen was tall and thin, with a hard, hatchet-like face. Steel-framed spectacles shielded bright blue eyes and he had a full shock of neatly trimmed gray hair. He smiled when Clarice came and and rose to meet her, towering over her as he did so. Clarice figured he had to go at least six-four, maybe six-five. He extended a thin-fingered hand that had thumbed through many books but rarely done manual labor. On one finger was a class ring of some type.

"Good morning to you, Agent Starling," he said courteously. "I'm Gordon Hansen. Welcome to Coltsburg. I'm quite glad you came to help us." His voice was booming, rolling through the room like thunder, and Clarice found herself oddly cowed. She sure wouldn't want to be sentenced by him.

"Good morning, your Honor," Clarice replied, feeling her own drawl try desperately to sound a little more like his genteel accent. "I'm glad to help. I've reviewed the documents that your daughter sent. I just wanted to ask you a few questions."

"Can I offer you some coffee or tea? The ladies in Admin make great sweet tea."

Clarice smiled tightly and shook her head. "No thank you sir, I don't believe I will."

"Of course," the judge nodded. He glanced down and saw the file she was carrying. His face tightened in momentary distaste and then settled back. "Well, then. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

Clarice noted the look and realized she would have to go gently here; she would be reminding him of the loss of his wife. Well, she could do that if she had to. She'd just stick to business.

"Well, sir," she began, "I guess I just wanted to know. According to the papers, she was released and got a bus ticket to Richmond. Do you have any family there, or is there anyone you know of that she might be trying to find there?"

The judge shook his silver-maned head. "No, ma'am. I don't have any family there, and I have no idea who she might be trying to look for, if anyone."

Clarice nodded. "Can you think of any reason why she might go there?"

The judge let out a heavy sigh and took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. "I think she was just trying to get away from here. Tell you the truth, I don't know what she was thinking. But then, I never did. She was an odd girl."

From his tone, he already considered her dead, it seemed. "Did she ever attempt to contact you? After...," she trailed off.

The judge shook his head. "She wrote us from the jail a few times." His face twisted in anger. "She thought I'd get her off the hook. I didn't reply. Not...not after Christine. I had nothing to say to her. I still don't."

"She did contact you?" Clarice said. "I'm very sorry to pry, your Honor, but I need to know."

The judge gave her a cool, grave look that suddenly reminded her of Jack Crawford. "I realize that, Agent Starling," he said heavily. "She wrote us from the county jail. Once she was sentenced and sent off to state prison, nothing. I think she realized we were done with her. I haven't spoken to her since she was arrested. I haven't seen her since she was sentenced. I had nothing to do with her appeals, and I don't want anything further to do with her. I do hope you understand."

"Oh, I do, sir, I surely do," Clarice emphasized. "All right, then. Are there friends here she might have contacted? Anyone? Any other relatives you might not be on good terms with?"

Judge Hansen shook his head again. "She didn't have many friends. For the most part, it was that..._boy." _The judge packed more venom and hate into the word than any epithet.

Clarice nodded slowly. A bit of Internet research had told her that Claire's boyfriend had died in prison shortly after his sentencing. There weren't many details, but the point was, the boyfriend was as dead as his victim. "All right, sir," she said. "I was also curious...do you have her things, maybe? Her room? Or did she keep a journal? I'd like a look at any of that, if I could."

The judge shrugged. "We threw a lot of it away," he said. "You're welcome to look over whatever you like. My son will be home in a few hours; he caught an early shift. Both he and Sarah will also answer whatever questions you might have of them, too."

"All right." Clarice could tell this wasn't going to go very far; maybe there would be more at the house. Or, she reflected, the prison, which she could detour over to on the way back to Arlington. "Sir, I am so very sorry to bring back any painful memories," she said softly.

The judge nodded slowly. "I know," he said softly. "Believe me, I understand, Agent Starling. I'll do what I can to help you. But the fact is, the only thing I want is for her to help Sarah. After what she's taken from us, she can do that much."

"I understand, sir. I'll do my job, too. Thank you so much." Clarice rose. The judge politely walked her to the door to see her out. Clarice collected her gun at the security desk downstairs and sighed, walking back to the Mustang. It hadn't been a great start. But she would find her prey.

* * *

Dr. Lecter had always been able to focus. In his young manhood, during medical school, he had learned to spend hours reviewing a book until the text was no longer necessary and he could recall it from memory alone. He did not have a naturally eidetic memory, but the use of the memory palace had given him almost the same thing. But at first, one had to focus and study, allowing the contents of whatever he was reading to find its home in his palace so that he could he could access it whenever needed and set his mind to work on it.

Had he been working with Clarice Starling, he might have been able to amuse himself at her expense, because his conclusions were quite different from hers. In the FBI's search for Buffalo Bill, he had held an advantage; he had already known precisely who Buffalo Bill was, owing to their mutual acquaintance Benjamin Raspail. Clarice had needed to profile and track the killer; Dr. Lecter had simply to decide how to dole out his clues in a way that would provide him the most value, and the most fun.

But the doctor did not intend to help Clarice find her prey. Not this time. No, he would help the prey evade Clarice.

Had he teamed up with Clarice this time, he had little doubt that the young woman would be located within a few days. At the very least, she would be expected to provide the donation for her sister.

There was no fun to be had in that. A self-important prosecutor and her self-important father the judge, accustomed to getting their own way, getting it one more time and going on their merry way. No. It wouldn't do. He thought back to Senator Ruth Martin, and the pain in her eyes when he asked if she had breast-fed her daughter, and where it would tickle her when Catherine floated. Then, he had seen an opportunity to free himself, and so fun had taken a back seat. Now, he was confident enough to allow himself some fun in the form of this family and their search for their outcast.

In order to accomplish this goal, he had to find her first, which meant he had to understand her better than Clarice did. He had not compared his thoughts to Clarice Starling's yet, as he did not have access to any of her conclusions, but he did have a reasonably good idea of who this girl was and how she might operate.

Claire Hansen had requested a bus ticket to Richmond, a place she had not grown up in and did not know. It was possible, Dr. Lecter thought, that she had a friend there, someone who had recently been released. However, he deemed this unlikely. Claire Hansen's conviction had been overturned; therefore she could conceivably lie on her release paperwork. They would have had to let her go anyway; their legal authority to hold her had been voided. However, had she gone to stay with another ex-convict, that ex-convict would likely have been on parole or community control of some type. Thus, not entirely trustworthy, and useful only for the short term for someone who apparently intended to stay disappeared.

Why had she not gone home, where there might be conceivably friends as well as enemies? There was a clear enough reason for this, if you read the file carefully. He had. The file had some copies of her incoming mail, but not outgoing. Perhaps it wasn't censored anymore. Dr. Lecter knew the record was not complete. He knew this because three weeks after her conviction had been overturned by the appellate courts, the prison authorities had put Claire in solitary for two weeks. The reason for this had been contacting her victims by mail. Since obviously Claire could not write her dead stepmother, it was clear enough. Claire had written her family, for whatever reason, and they had complained to the prison. He had little doubt they would have acted quickly for a judge, a prosecutor, and a policeman.

That suggested two things. Obviously, there would be no peace between the two sides. Yet more could be drawn that just _that. _He would not have been surprised if Claire had suspected her former family might well pull whatever strings they could to get the case in the Virginia Supreme Court, so as to get the conviction reinstated. Whether or not they actually had was largely irrelevant, he realized. She would have believed they would, and she would have acted accordingly. Therefore, anything she'd told the prison authorities in planning her release was likely to be sparse or a lie, the better to leave less of a trail when she was finally released. He wondered what she might have thought when they actually let her out of the prison and sent her off to the bus station. Shock and suspicion that it had actually happened, perhaps. It was not likely to be anything like what he had done after obtaining his freedom.

No, Richmond had been a smoke screen, nothing more. She'd been the scion of small-town aristocracy; she'd likely blurted out the name of the first big city that came to mind. A fugitive himself, Dr. Lecter knew perfectly well the attraction of big cities – easy travel and anonymity. Richmond would have air, bus, and train links available for her use. Air travel was probably not an option, given her financial situation, but bus and train tickets would be in her reach. The bus was the more likely of the two, for two reasons. It was cheaper, which would be a concern to someone with very little resources. Bus stations were also often much less conscientious about checking identification.

As far as finances went, it had occurred to him as well as Clarice Starling that Claire Hansen might well be recruited into prostitution. He did not think it would happen so quickly. She would likely distrust everyone around her, which would help deflect a prospective pimp's attempts to gain her confidence. Two and a half years behind bars would not have erased all of that upper-crust breeding. Staggered it, perhaps, but not erased. Besides, her prison records indicated an IQ of 135 – bright, but not in his league. Then again, nobody was.

He didn't think she would resort to selling herself, at least not yet. That would require a few more blows of fate, a few more hungry days, nights on the street, and a hostile world surrounding her. Instead, the doctor surmised, she would try her hand at petty thievery, where she could at least rationalize that she had outwitted her victims. Not confidence work; she would be too distrustful of people. She might panhandle, but there were likelier choices. Home burglaries perhaps, but more likely pickpocketing. She was white and young and attractive; so long as she looked reasonably clean, she could go to a shopping mall, or a movie theater – anywhere where well-off white women would be in abundance. There, it was a matter of waiting until she found some affluent trophy wife yapping away on her cell phone, leaving her purse wide open. Credit card crimes would be unlikely, unless she immediately purchased clothes or other necessities with them – she didn't have the criminal connections to make use of things like that. No, this little murderess whom Clarice sought would be mostly looking towards cash. He doubted that Clarice would even be able to track the thefts, unless the FBI investigated every purse snatching in the country now. Most likely, she would have felt herself a fugitive, and she would have sought to get enough money for a bus ticket or train ticket and then move on.

There would be no crimes other than those necessary for survival and escape, Dr. Lecter thought. Her prison records indicated that other than the contacting of her family, the majority of her offenses had been petty in nature, the sort of thing that would not have been crimes in the free world. She wasn't a career criminal nor an antisocial personality. That made her harder to track, not easier; when she felt safe, she would likely attempt to lead a low-profile life, working a job and perhaps having a husband like everyone else rather than committing crimes that would attract the legal system's attention.

But she didn't feel safe now, Dr. Lecter reasoned. She was running. The question was, where was she going? And in which direction?

She was intelligent, but neither criminally skilled or sophisticated. Just for fun, he pictured this girl in place of Clarice in front of him at the asylum, brandishing a freshly printed card that identified her as a criminal trainee, perhaps trying to wheedle him into profiling Jack Crawford so that killers could better evade the FBI. _Doctor, we have a hard problem in criminal sciences...they say Buffalo Jack skins his minds. _His own indignant tone: _Francis Dolarhyde sent a trainee to me? _

He chuckled to himself and dismissed the image, droll as it was. No. She was running. Where to? He leaned back in his chair and thought. A small-town girl, fleeing from everything she had ever known, believing rightly or wrongly that her release had been a cruel mistake and the hunt would commence. A small-town girl who had been on the opposite end of the spectrum from Clarice Starling's shirttail upbringing.

He sat up suddenly.

A small-town _Southern _girl. A girl who would recognize the Confederate flag as easily as the US flag; a girl who spoke with a drawl and said _Ah _instead of _I._ But now, she would have been rejected by Southern society. A brief web search had told him that her crime had been well covered in southern Virginia and the environs; she was known down there. Likely, she had been used as a bad example in a hundred dusty little churches where the pastor smelled of hair pomade and shouted his sermons at his flock.

North. She would flee north.

It was possible, Dr. Lecter allowed, that she might instead head for Florida, which these days might as well be Northern with the amount of retirees flooding the state. But to do that she would need to cross most of the Southern states filled with Southern policemen. The northern border of the old Confederacy was much closer and more accessible. The northern East Coast states were heavily populated, and it would be easy for her to blend in. Even the accent would not draw that much attention. They were also more liberal politically, although he doubted this girl would factor that into her decision.

California was also a possibility, but he thought it unlikely; she had been raised on the East Coast, and her first thought would be the East Coast. Besides, there was once again the time and expense of travel. West Virginia was not likely. It was mostly small towns, the sort of thing she had known, except for Wheeling which was in the northern part of the state and not likely to be forefront in the mind of a young woman raised in southern Virginia. Ingroups and outgroups; basics, really. She would have learned all her life that _we _meant Southerners and _they _were Yankees. No, she would head for the Yankee country that she at least knew.

From Richmond she would likely want to get across the state line, first and foremost. If her estranged family did intend to harass her through the legal system, it would be easiest while she was still in the state. Dr. Lecter thought that she was no longer in Virginia. Richmond would have been for only a few days. Obviously, the first city over the border was Washington, DC. Dr. Lecter thought she would bypass it, fearing the federal government organs would bring higher security. It wasn't entirely true – he could walk down the District's streets in relative safety – but he had to remember that his target would not have his experience as a fugitive.

If not Washington DC, then where? Dr. Lecter found the answer as droll as his image of her as the criminal trainee. It struck him as likely, too, for many regional lines in the mid-South ended there. If Claire Hansen eschewed Washington, then her likeliest destination would be...Baltimore. Travel to there would be inexpensive and quick. This amused the doctor; he had not been back to Baltimore itself in quite some time.

"Home again, home again," Dr. Lecter said in the stillness of the rented room. "Jiggety-jog."


	4. Beginning Investigations

_Nice house, _Clarice Starling thought.

The house in which the Hansens lived was in the nicest section of town. It towered over a large, neatly kept lawn, neighboring houses kept far away to the side. The driveway was a long, straight black strip of asphalt innocent of cracks or weeds. Clarice Starling, a veteran of small towns, knew small-town aristocracy when she saw it.

She pulled into the driveway and parked. There was a fairly new Honda parked in front of her. Someone was home. She went up to the heavy wooden door and rang the doorbell.

A few moments went by before the door opened, revealing Sarah Hansen. She wore a nicely cut pants suit but had eschewed her wig. Her face was pale and her eyes sunken in.

"Good morning, Agent Starling," she said, and her voice sounded dull and tired. "Won't you come in?"

"Thank you," Clarice said, and stepped forward. "I'm very sorry to bother you. I spoke with your father. I wanted to know if there was anything in the house that I might be able to look at. Her possessions, things like that."

"Of course," the prosecutor replied. "Look at anything you like. I'm not sure how much there is that you'll find useful, though. We did throw away quite a bit of it...after." She sighed. "Would you like some coffee? Tea? Anything to drink?"

"No, thank you, ma'am," Clarice said, remembering her own manners. "I'm fine. Could you answer a few questions for me?"

"Of course," Sarah Hansen said, and led Clarice into a nicely appointed living room where she sat down on a leather couch, waving an elegant hand to indicate Clarice should do the same. "I'm not sure I'll be much help, though. Chemotherapy days always knock me for a loop. It'll be a few days until I'm really myself again."

Clarice felt her stomach tighten and smiled tightly. What, exactly, were you supposed to say to something like that?

"I'm sure," she hedged, which seemed like the safest bet. "Well, whenever you're up to answering some questions...," she trailed off.

"Now will be fine," Sarah replied, waving an elegantly manicured hand.

Clarice nodded. "When was the last time you spoke with Claire?"

Sarah exhaled sharply. "Spoke with her? When they arrested her."

"Did she contact you from prison? After the reversal of her conviction, maybe?"

The sick woman shook her head. "She wrote a letter. We didn't reply."

Clarice pondered that. There was something she didn't like here. "Not at all?"

Sarah shook her head. "My father had no desire to speak to her, and I respected his wishes," she said. "The lab results confirming I had relapsed hadn't come back until after her release. Fate can be cruel sometimes." She smiled wanly, her eyes dim blue in a jaundiced, wan face.

"Are there any friends here that she might have gone to?" Clarice asked. "Anyone who might have given her some kind of help?"

Sarah paused. "Claire was always somewhat...odd," she said. "She had some friends. Odd types like her. I can't say definitely, but I can give you some names, I suppose. I don't imagine very many of them would have done much to help her, though. They're not the type."

That was possible, Clarice thought, but less likely than Sarah Hansen seemed to think. She didn't like her sister; therefore, in her mind, nobody did. Most fugitives got some help from friends or relatives. It didn't even need to be that much: some cash, identification, a ride somewhere. Had one of Claire's gothic pals moved to Richmond? That might be well worth looking into. And speaking of relatives...

"I'm also a bit curious about your mother," she said. "Do you think she might offer Claire help?"

_Your interrogative case often has that proper subjunctive in it. With your accent, it stinks of the lamp. _

The voice in her head, so sharp and pointed, was as unwelcome as it was surprising. Where had _that_ come from? She shook her head and forced herself to dismiss the thought. Dr. Lecter had no business here.

The other woman nodded slowly, as if she had been expecting the question.

"Once again, it's possible, but I doubt it," she said slowly. "My parents divorced many years ago. I was eight. Claire was three or four. Our mother...had her own demons. She abandoned the family. Daddy won custody of us, which should tell you something. After the divorce, she left, and she didn't come back. She wasn't part of our lives. I suppose this sounds terrible, but I couldn't even tell you where she lives or if she's even alive. I didn't know her very well, and Claire hardly knew her at all. She never really mentioned her while she was here. I don't see how she could have searched for her in prison."

_Jeezus-pleezus. Talk about your dysfunctional family, _Clarice thought. It was damned rare that women left their children behind. Clarice found herself wondering if that was a factor; most killers had pretty bad childhoods.

"Even so," Clarice said, "It's worth looking at the possibility. What is her name?"

"Julie," Sarah said dismissively. "I believe her maiden name was Mennerd." It seemed she didn't care too much either way. For some reason, that made Clarice uneasy. People usually held great amounts of emotions towards relatives; either very positive or very negative. It didn't seem right. Then again, maybe she had just gotten over it. It wasn't like she didn't have more pressing problems.

"Is there anyone else who Claire might have looked to for help?" Clarice prompted. "Anyone you can think of?"

Sarah shook her head again. "I sincerely doubt that anyone here would have had much to do with her," she said, still icily calm. "She was not very popular here to begin with, and very few people here would want to help her afterwards. She was extraordinarily lucky in getting out. I don't think she would have pushed it."

Clarice nodded slowly. Sarah Hansen was trying, sure, but she wasn't sure this was going anywhere. She'd have to do her own gumshoeing. "Fair enough," she said judiciously. "Where might I find Claire's possessions? You said you still had some."

"There's a box in the basement." Sarah Hansen rose and led Clarice to a stout wooden door. The basement below it had steep stairs and smelled moldy. The stone walls meant the house must've been quite old, and their jagged, uneven patterns reminded her of Dr. Lecter's cellblock in the asylum. She blinked again and forced herself to dismiss the thought.

At the far end of a basement filled with the detreitus of a well-off family was a single cardboard box off in one corner. On the box was a single scrawled letter C. Sarah pointed at it, and made a moue with her mouth.

"There it is," she said. "The box may fall apart. I can get you another one--,"

"It'll be fine," Clarice said, and picked it up. There wasn't much in there. A few books and notebooks, she could see that. She got it upstairs in one piece and brought it into the living room.

"Do you need anything?" Sarah Hansen asked, ever the mindful hostess.

Clarice shook her head. "Actually, I just want to go over this," she said. "If you've got things you need to do, go ahead. I surely understand you don't feel well."

The other woman nodded and left the room. A few minutes later, Clarice could hear retching muffled behind a closed door. Her stomach knotted in sympathy. Chemotherapy had to be hard.

But she couldn't feel sorry for Sarah Hansen right now. She had to concentrate on the box. These were the things of the woman she sought. Time to see what she had to work with.

There wasn't as much as she'd hoped. There was a paperback book on Wicca. Clarice scanned that, hoping for notes or something in the margins. There was nothing. The notebook proved to be a notebook for freshman biology. She picked that up for a quick look-see and scratched a note on her pad to go through it more thoroughly later. There might be stuff doodled in it that would be useful, and at the least it would be a handwriting sample. Clarice thumbed through it. Claire Hansen wrote with a textbook ladies' script: all round and flowy, the way a million other teenage girls wrote. At least she didn't dot her i's with little hearts, which was a habit that had always irritated Clarice to no end for some reason. There were some doodles, which she expected, and a few pagan-looking symbols that she would have to look into.

There was also an inexpensive digital camera in the box. Clarice took that and turned it on, but it remained stubbornly dead. _Batteries, _she probably thought, and popped open the battery hatch with a finger. Fortunately this model took regular double-A's. If there were pictures on here of friends, that would give her something to go on.

Friends. That was it, Clarice thought. Without help from her family, Claire would have likely looked to friends for help. If it hadn't been friends from around here, then it would have been friends from prison.

Already, she found herself thinking of some likely people she would want to talk to. She'd have to see if there were any high school friends in the area. Also, Claire's lawyer, as long as she was in the area. The lawyer wouldn't tell her much – defense lawyers never did – but it was worth a shot. She'd also want to check in with the family of Claire's boyfriend, although she wasn't going to mention that to the Hansens. Then, the prison, which Clarice found the likeliest source. They'd know who she hung out with – and who recently would have been released to Richmond.

_Local friends, lawyer, prison. _That was her path. She'd also have to review what she had here further. At Quantico or at home, she would have more tools to work with than she had here. As she rose and bid Sarah Hansen goodbye, she found herself feeling confident. She had enough to work with. She was on her way.

* * *

_Good to be back, _Dr. Lecter thought. He alighted from the white van and allowed the valet to hand him a claim slip. It had been many years since he had last been to Baltimore; the demands of being a fugitive required his absence. Fortunately, he had several well-established identities and it was not difficult to put one to use.

The van was not exactly what he preferred in cars. It had a large engine, but not the power he generally preferred. On the other hand, he would do well to avoid the supercharged Jaguars he normally favored, especially when coming back to his old stomping grounds. It would help him in other ways; if he had to, he could bed down in it for the night, it had substantial cargo capacity and privacy. Behind the driver's seat were some magnetic signs and a light bar that he could attach to the van in a few minutes, making it look like an ambulance, as well as other equipment he had obtained. He knew perfectly well that his prey might not be willing to accompany him willingly, even though his intent was to help.

Help? Not really, he would admit. His intent was to have some fun, and to accomplish that goal he would have to help her. He rather liked the irony of the situation. A well-off judge, king of his own little domain, and his favored daughter the prosecutor, with all that power at their disposal...and yet, none of that power did them any good with the one person they really needed. They had brought Clarice in to change that. Dr. Lecter thought it would be much more fun to keep things the way they were.

Besides, he was fascinated in a theoretical way about what this might do to Clarice Starling. Clarice had struggled before, but in all cases she had either prevailed, or done all she could. She was a warrior. A warrior may suffer setbacks because their opponents were stronger, or because their leaders gave them poor instructions, as had already happened to her. She had struggled in the past, but she had never considered herself a failure.

What would happen if she did? She had been spared the sight of Catherine Martin's battered corpse; what if she was not spared the sight of Sarah Hansen's? What would happen if she was forced to view the corpse of someone she had sworn to protect? She had seen the one in West Virginia, one of Gumb's work, but that had been before her involvement in the case; she had not considered that a failure. But what if she could not evade, could not excuse, could do nothing other than admit that she had failed? Might she then be more tractable towards the inescapable truth – that there was no hope for her in her quest? She could never succeed; there would always be predators and prey. Only the names changed, and in the end Clarice Starling could devote her entire life to protecting the innocent and not change a thing. He had learned this at a young age. Would a direct, personal failure bring her to acceptance of it? Dr. Lecter thought it quite possible, and it was a welcome bonus.

But Clarice would come later. The first movement of his symphony would be that of the sick prosecutor, the accuser now on a death row of her own. Currently she was trying to file her appeal, as it were, to the only court she could. He closed his eyes and let his imagination wander for a moment. What was she thinking right now? It was a shame he could not ask her personally. A letter would have to do, and not until Claire Hansen was safely under his guidance. Would she fight until the last, as he suspected Clarice would in such a situation? Would she give in and allow death to claim her? What sorts of horror must be going through the mind of a woman knowing that she had deliberately alienated the one person best situated to save her life? The waiting and the faint flicker of hope would distill into exquisite agony and torment, like the finest and rarest of wines. And like those fine wines, Dr. Lecter wanted to savor it.

It was not lost on the psychiatrist that she might well seek out another donor. That, he could do nothing about, but he doubted it. After all, they had not attempted to hire a private investigator, as most people might. No, they had gone straight for Clarice Starling, killer of Jame Gumb and tracker of him. That suggested to him that her time was short. Only a truly desperate woman would attempt to hire an FBI agent, even one currently in disgrace.

"Sir?"

Dr. Lecter looked up at the makeup-masked face of the hotel concierge.

"I'm sorry?" he said.

"Can I help you?" she asked. From the look on her face it wasn't the first time she had asked.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, this time a statement. "Jet lag. I have a reservation for a luxury suite. The name is Shipman."

The concierge smiled robotically as her fingers clicked over her keyboard. "Ah yes," she said. "Room 1120."

Within short order, Dr. Lecter had traded a credit-card impression for a plastic keycard, and headed up the elevators to his temporary abode. The suite was quite pleasant without being too ostentatious. He had learned to get by with less than the best when necessary. He had brought a laptop with him, and the hotel was pleased to offer him wireless Internet. There would be useful to him in his search. He wanted all the help he could get.

He knew he had great intelligence, training and insight into the human mind, and more experience with fugitives than his competition, but he also knew that there was an element to the random in his calculations. He did not _know _that Claire Hansen had stopped in Baltimore; it had simply been the most likely option. He still believed it to be correct, but it was, at its core, merely a hypothesis.

He knew, also, that he had some time. Clarice Starling would most likely be carefully building the foundations of her case, traipsing around the backwoods to see what she might be able to find out about her prey. Since she had chosen to stay with the FBI, she was predictable. That gave Dr. Lecter an advantage. Clarice could attempt to interview old high school teachers and friends. It would give him time.

Although Baltimore was his own home town, it was not his prey's. She might not stay here long, either; she had no reason to stay. No, her sojourn here would likely be an attempt to clear her backtrail. He would have to pick up her trail here, or else he would forfeit his time advantage and possibly lose her entirely. Clarice could be relied on to waste some time performing as she had been trained, but she was no one's fool, and it was entirely possible the girl could make a foolish mistake.

He glanced around at the anonymous finery of the suite and thought for a moment. He had wanted to order some wine from room service, but decided against it. Instead, he went into the bathroom and poured himself tap water into a plastic cup. The taste made him grimace; Baltimore municipal water had not improved in his absence. He stared at the glass of water as if it had deliberately set out to offend him. Yet it was a way to try and focus on his prey, who would surely have no fine wines at her disposal.

Continuing with the paradigm, Dr. Lecter took off his suit jacket and dress shirt, hanging them neatly in the closet. Under it he wore a simple white undershirt. He sat down on the floor, eschewing the comfort of the sofa and the bed in his suite. Closing his eyes, he took another sip of the water and pondered.

_You are alone, _he told himself. _You are alone, desperately afraid of your estranged family's retribution. You have no money, little experience of the world outside your sheltered little county, and no allies. But that's preferable, in a way; you have no ties at all. _

_All the same, you are going somewhere, _Dr. Lecter thought. _Perhaps you don't even know where you're going, __other than away. Away from home, away from here, as far as you can. But likely prison taught you a few tricks, just as I learned. _

_You don't trust the system, so it's unlikely that you'll seek the assistance of the social welfare agencies. You're more likely to try and hide out among the fringes, in those places where the homeless and destitute go. They have their ways and means. _

His knowledge of where those places might be was sadly out of date. All the same, it could not be that difficult to find out. Fortunately, he had brought a laptop with him, and the hotel offered free Internet access. That would be a start. At some point, he would have to actually hit the streets and investigate.

He found he was actually looking forward to it.

* * *

Claire turned around, feeling somehow empty and angry at the same time, and stared at the double doors of the church. _Some church. Bunch of lousy hypocrites. _Well, that was what she got for seeing if a homeless shelter in a church might help her.

She'd been in Baltimore for only a few days, but already the city had not done much to welcome her. She hadn't expected very much from Richmond. It was in her home state, and there it would be easiest for _them _to make life tough for her.

She'd come up to Baltimore hoping things might be different here. But she had nowhere to stay and no money. So she'd done the only thing she could do: try the homeless shelters. She'd been loath to go to the welfare offices. They would want her name and social security number and the like. They would keep records. And if people kept records, then eventually _they _would find them. So she'd thought a church might be willing to help her, even if she wasn't a Christian herself. That had proved to be a mistake.

She still had her pentacle – one of the few things she'd had from her old life. She hadn't practiced much in prison; too many guards were diehard Bible-thumpers and would give her crap about it. She hadn't done anything since her release; survival came before spirituality. But after the hell she'd gone through, she'd damn well earned the right to wear it. And that was all she'd done. Wear it.

At first, they'd been nice enough to her. They'd taken her in and explained what she'd offered. They had dinner every night, and then they'd give her a cot. They had other services too: clothes, job banks, and the like. And they'd had religious services too, which they'd tried to sell her on.

Then her pentacle necklace had fallen into view, and all hell had broken loose. One woman had just about run away from her, as if Claire was intending to swallow her soul whole; another woman had told her that _that _sort of thing wasn't allowed here. She'd tried to stand up for herself, which had proved to be another mistake, at least as far as these types went. As soon as they'd seen her pentacle, she had stopped being a hungry, poor, homeless woman and become some sort of demonic creature. They'd told her to leave, and she'd left. No food, no bed, nothing. Apparently a Godlier woman would get their help.

_Fine, _Claire thought. _Fine, then. At least I know where I stand. _

Where she stood was in the middle of a Baltimore sidewalk, with the wind whipping through the streets. The air was unpleasantly cool and would only get colder as the night went on. She was hungry and tired and had no place to spend the night.

She had some money; she'd gotten it in Richmond. In prison, she'd met a few pickpockets. They'd taught her a trick or two. It had largely been a matter of visiting the mall and hanging out in the food court until she saw an opportunity. It was amazing to her just how naïve some people could be; they just got up to go get a soda or something and left their purses behind. Stealing bothered her. For one thing, it was a ticket back to jail if she got caught. For another, it was one of those things respectable people didn't do, and regardless of all the hell she'd been put through, she considered herself respectable. All the same, she needed money, needed it now, and it seemed to be the best of a lot of bad options.

So she had money – four hundred dollars in fives and tens and twenties. She could go and get a motel room somewhere for the night, but she didn't want to take that route. For one thing, even decent motels required ID, and all she had was a cheap fake ID from a Richmond head shop. It was fine for bus tickets, but she didn't want to test it very far. For another, she did have an idea where she could go, but she had to figure out a way to get there on the money and resources that she had. If she could avoid any more stealing, she might be able to carry it out.

She'd kept her ears open during her time on Baltimore's streets. Nobody was allowed to get too close, but some of the other people on the bottom of society were willing to chat, at least. They said there was an old asylum that had been closed years ago not too far away. Some people slept there. It was locked, but there were ways in.

Well, it seemed a better place than a doorway, didn't it?

It wasn't far from the church, either. She could see it in the fading light, brooding behind its rusting security fences. It looked dark and foreboding. The gates were locked, but the bottom of the chain link had been pulled up and it was relatively easy for her to slip under and through. The building itself was similarly locked, but a few windows on the ground floor were accessible.

Inside, it was much darker. Claire could hear voices and see shadows moving back and forth in the darkness. She ducked back, glancing around as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Better not to find out if they were friendly or not – or if they wanted to get overly friendly with her.

The place seemed wide open inside; very few doors were locked, and many that had once been locked had been forced open in one way or another. She opened a door to a lower stairwell and crept down the stairs as quietly as she could. There was a sign ahead that read _Violent Men's Ward. _Sounded charming. The door at the bottom of the stairwell opened, but the double doors into the ward had a stout chain looped around their handles that was padlocked shut.

Claire paused and looked at that. She pushed experimentally on it. The doors opened, but only by a few inches. No dice. All the same, she'd learned a few tricks, and if the padlock was all there was to it, that might not be so bad. She turned around and began to look around carefully. There was a scatter of empty beer cans that reeked of cheap beer on the floor, a filthy, muddy towel next to it, and inside the orderly's office she could see a rusty pair of scissors. That would be all she needed.

The little window to the orderly's office was barred, but she could fit her hand between the bars and tried to fish for the scissors. They were just out of range; she could touch the handles with her fingertips, but didn't have enough purchase to grab them.

A drunken, coarse shout came from overhead. Claire shivered. She pressed her arm harder between the bars. _Just one more inch...not even that, _she thought, and tried not to think about what would happen if she got her arm stuck in the bars, trapped here for whoever might find her.

Then she felt one ring of the scissor handles in her grasp, sighed mightly, and pulled her prize back through. Her upper arm was scratched, but that was okay. Time to do some surgery on Mr. Beer Can. She picked one out of the disgusting pile and wrinkled her nose.

Claire scootched back into the bottom of the stairwell and pushed one blade of the scissors into the can. Then she began to cut the top off. It made a horrible _scrootch screech _sound as she worked, and she stopped on occasion, straining her ears in the darkness to hear footsteps coming down the stairs. But no one did.

She cut the bottom off too, then went up the side to press the can into a flat rectangle of smelly aluminum. Then she wrapped the towel around the edge to protect her hands while she worked. Then she cut a squarish piece and cut that into the shape of a letter M.

Folding the M shape in on itself a few times rewarded her with a crude but effective shim. Her work did not come without cost; she cut her hands a few times and saw blood well on her palms. She'd never actually done this, but one of her cellmates had told her the process, and showed her with a piece of cardboard. _Everybody thinks padlocks are all about cracking the combination. Screw that. What you do is, you bypass the lock part and just concentrate on the shackle. Shove a piece of metal in between the two clicky parts, and there you go. _ But when it was done, she had a piece of metal with a rounded point and two handles jutting off at angles to it. Now to try it out.

Claire took the padlock and looked at it. The chain clanked and rattled against the doorhandles. She slid the padlock shim into one side of the lock. Well-made padlocks had less tolerance, but this one looked old and not the best quality to begin with. She pressed down. Nothing. Wrapping the towel around the two handles made it easier to push. Even so, the thin metal pressed against her bleeding palms and made her wince. She shifted, grimaced, and pressed down as hard as she could.

She felt a firm, precision shift within the guts of the lock, heard a _click, _and the padlock meekly surrendered, hanging open and defeated at the end of its chain. She grinned and pulled the padlock off the chain and then the chain off the door. Now it was time for her reward.

Claire opened the door and glanced inside. The doors had handles on the inside, too, so she could run the chain through the handles inside and sleep unmolested. But what was here? Obviously they intended to keep people out. Then she looked, and shook her head.

_Well, _Claire thought, _I got it...and a hell of a git I've got. _

All her effort had rewarded her with...a cellblock. A row of barred cells, all too familiar. It smelled moldy and dank. It was dark overhead, except for one or two dim lightbulbs overhead. Despite all odds, they still worked. Then again, Claire thought, maybe someone had figured out how to turn the electricity back on. It wouldn't surprise her. People with nothing tended to find ingenious ways of doing things. Turn the electricity back on, grab a few lightbulbs, and there you go.

On the other hand, the idea of sleeping in a cell was pretty repugnant. Maybe she ought to go back upstairs. On the other hand, the doors could be locked, and that was no small thing for a young woman on her own. Besides, she was tired, and at least it would be relatively dry and warm. She was alone here; she could tell that almost without looking in the cells. Nothing moved in this dark and dim place.

The first order of business was to lock the doors. After that, she looked around for anything useful. There wasn't much. She had her padlock shim. She still had the pieces of the can if she wanted to make a blade out of it. She had the scissors. She'd left the towel on the other side of the door. Too late now to do anything about it now. The block itself had little that was useful; a Snickers wrapper, a tiny scrap of paper with the nonsense word _JESA _written on it in crayon, what looked like a broken piece of plate, and the shattered remains of some beer bottles. One cell was stacked with smelly, moldy mattresses.

She paced down the hall and looked at the last cell. That one was different. Instead of bars, it had glass walls with air holes about four feet or so up. That was odd. Who had they kept in here? The Amazing Fish-Man?

Well, the idea of waking up and staring at bars was repellent, and she could deal with this better. She grabbed on of the mattresses and dragged it into the glass cell. There was still the empty wire frame of a cot in it, so she dropped the mattress on the frame. It smelled nasty, but there wasn't much to be done for it. It was dry and better than sleeping on the floor. It was also free. That was about the best that could be said for it.

As she lay down, she considered her options. None of them were particularly good. Ultimately, what she needed was distance. She needed a place where no one knew who she was, and where she could figure out a way to start over. Also, she needed someplace where she could be safe from _them. _For a judge, a prosecutor, and a cop, all working together, it would be easy to make her life hell.

There was such a place, and in fact she'd thought of it on her release. She'd been willing to give Baltimore a try. It wasn't happening, it seemed. So, back to the original plan. Getting a bus ticket in Richmond had been easy enough. Shortly after her first theft, she'd found a Richmond head shop and bought a fake ID. It wouldn't hold up to serious scrutiny, but bus stations didn't look too hard. Of course there were cops patrolling the bus stations, along with pimps, dealers, muggers, hookers, and Goddess knew what, but if you didn't act too vulnerable and acted like you had every right to be there you'd be okay.

In the morning, she'd have to do some work and check around. That would be easy enough. Then, move on. She knew exactly where she wanted to go: she just had to figure out a way to get there. For that, she'd need to do a little research. As she stared up at the ceiling, she realized how she could do that too.

It was a rough plan, but better than nothing. If she was careful and kept her eyes and ears open, she could get through this. She rolled over on her side, away from the light, and put her hands under her head to provide a sort of pillow. Although she was still hungry and cold, she felt better as she drifted off. Things were going to get better.


	5. Weaknesses

_Jack squat. Diddly. Zip. I got nuthin'. _

Those unpleasant thoughts slipped through Clarice Starling's mind as she sat at her desk in her duplex. As unpleasant as it was, it was also the facts. She had the box of Claire's belongings, which had revealed...not much. A few pagan symbols that Clarice had identified as a symbol for the Horned God, a weird Celtic-looking symbol that that proved to mean something female (maiden, mother, crone), and a hand-writted copy of the Theban alphabet, which had allegedly been used as a substitution cipher by witches in prior eras. Clarice thought it more likely used by teenage girls of the present era to look antique and Ye Olde and different while they passed notes in math class. All the same, it was a code, and she had dutifully printed it out.

The digital camera had proved to contain....photos of people wearing dark clothes and makeup, the boys as much as the girls. _That _must have gone over well in the small town the Hansens came from. She'd managed to put names to some of them by laboriously cross-referencing the local high school yearbook. A few of them were still around. They had all denied knowing anything about Claire since her release. What was worse, in her opinion, was that she believed them. Not because she was naïve, but because she knew liars fairly well and none of these small-town goths, in her humble opinion, could lie worth a good goddam. They might have angst and woe down, but lie well they could not.

That had left people her target might have known in prison. The prison had helpfully faxed over a list of recently released prisoners. She had gone to Richmond and done some quick, hostile field interviews. Her FBI credentials versus their recently paroled status had given her the upper hand. Their reactions had been so similar Clarice thought there must be a When You Are Questioned By The FBI class at the prison: at first they'd been angry and hostile, not wanting to give away much. Then she'd seen them relax when she mentioned Claire Hansen's name. She had learned that Claire's nickname was Nature Girl or Witch Girl, that she was quiet and kept to herself, and wasn't on a friendly basis with any of the parolees. One of them had seen Claire get off at the bus station in Richmond, which Clarice already knew.

There were a few more paths to follow. Neither was promising. If none of the parolees had known anything about Claire, it was possible that someone still in prison had. Family, friends, whatever. If they had, there wasn't anything in the record about it. That being the case, Clarice had to weigh the options of going up to the prison and interviewing prisoners versus the likelihood of hearing another lovely chorus of denials choreographed with shrugged shoulders. Other than Dr. Lecter, Clarice had never been particularly skilled at interrogation. The other was not much more appealing. Claire Hansen's defense attorney had moved to Richmond after the trial. Apparently he'd continued with the appellate work. Clarice wasn't looking forward to that, for two reasons. The first was that as an agent of the FBI, she had little use for defense attorneys. It was their job to undo all her hard work in putting criminals in jail. The other was concurrent to the first; most defense attorneys didn't particularly care for her. Which, she supposed, was fair, but didn't help the situation much.

So, after the last con had shrugged at her and told her she was just tryin' to get by and didn't know where that witch girl had gone to, Clarice sighed and went back to her car. Shortly after her reinstatement and exile to the Academy, she'd gotten her own cell phone. She took out it out now and stared at it for a few moments, hoping to find some way of putting this off. The phone offered no suggestions on how she might do that, so Clarice dialed the number and waited.

"Law Offices of Roger Jenkins," said a perky voice.

"Good afternoon," Clarice said. "My name is Clarice Starling. I'm with the FBI. Could I speak to Mr. Jenkins?"

The voice instantly turned less perky and as suspicious as politeness allowed. Clarice gritted her teeth. "Is this...in regard to a client?"

"Sort of," Clarice acknowledged.

"One moment."

For several moments Clarice was in the silent world of Hold, and then a man spoke. "This is Roger Jenkins."

"Mr. Jenkins, good afternoon. This is Special Agent Starling with the FBI. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Roger Jenkins paused for a moment. "Anything to do with my clients is confidential. I'm sure you know that."

"This is about a _former _client," Clarice said. Before he could point out that that didn't matter, she plunged ahead. "It's about Claire Hansen. Her family is looking for her. She didn't speak with them after her release, and they want to talk to her."

Another pause. Did that mean anything? "I'm afraid I can't help you," he said curtly. "Ms. Hansen can go where she wants to."

"Oh, I understand that," Clarice said sympathetically. "Believe me, sir, I understand that. But the thing is, her sister is sick. You may have heard of it. She needs to find Claire very badly. They just want to talk. That's all."

"I see," the lawyer said briskly. "Can I ask how that's a federal matter?"  
_Crap, _Starling thought. She'd hoped he wouldn't ask that. "It's not," she said. "We're just trying to find her, that's all. I just volunteered to help out the family. They're worried about her."

"I see," he said distantly.

Only one thing to do, it seemed, and that was drop the bomb.

"Her sister has leukemia, Mr. Jenkins. Apparently Claire was tested before...well, before all this happened, and she needs her now. If you could give me a phone number, or let me know where she's staying--,"

"I can't," Jenkins said firmly. "What I can do, Agent Starling, is inform her of that fact if and when I see her."

"Sir, I understand that, really I do, but time is of the essence here. She doesn't have very long. Now if Claire is thinking there's going to be some kind of legal repercussions, I can assure you that's not the case. You could be there. If you could just get her in your office, let me talk to her, I can promise you that nothing's going to happen."

"Agent Starling," the defense attorney said, "you need to understand a few things. For one thing, my client is not under state control. Not on parole, not on bail, nothing. Her conviction was overturned. She is legally as free as you and I. She is an adult. She has no obligation to inform anyone of her whereabouts or what she's doing. Not me. Not her family. And not you, either. Secondly, I'm bound by confidentiality. My hands are tied."  
He seemed about to say something more, but stopped. Clarice took a breath.

"Sir, don't get me wrong," she said. "This is a family matter, not a criminal one. I can have the family call you if you like. They'll verify the story. All we are looking for here is her whereabouts. If you need a court order, to cover yourself, I'm sure that can be arranged. There are limits to confidentiality, and one of them is causing grievous harm to another person. Sarah Hansen is very sick. She will die if she does not find a bone marrow donor. Her sister can do that. Knowing that, do you know where Claire Hansen is?"

"Privilege," the attorney said. "Don't get me wrong, Agent Starling. I feel bad for Sarah Hansen. My hands are tied here. What I _can _do is inform her of that issue the next time I see her. That's really all I can do."

"When will that be?" Clarice pressed. "Sir, we'd like to handle this privately. If I need to get a warrant, I'll get one. If I need to get you in front of a judge, I'll do that. I'd much rather do this amicably."

His voice turned cool. "Agent Starling, my ethical obligations don't disappear merely because you find them inconvenient. I cannot simply produce her at your request. I can tell her when she contacts me again. I will do that. That's all I can do. It's as simple as that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to see another client. If I can be of further help, feel free to contact my receptionist."

Clarice sighed. "Thank you for your time, sir," she said.

"Good day to you, ma'am," he said, and then he was gone.

Clarice stared resentfully at her dashboard for a few moments. Great. Just great. She'd hoped for a little quiet cooperation here. Was that too much to ask? Apparently so. But had she thought anything different? Should she have suggested that Claire was into some kind of crime? Something where he'd have to reveal where she was? Or would he just shrug his shoulders and say he didn't know where she was? _Did _he know where she was? Questions, questions everywhere, and no answers.

What was worse was that he would be up on his toes if she tried again. Disconsolate, Clarice sighed and banged the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. All this work, and what did she have to show for it? Jack squat.

_Something else will come up, _she told herself. _Somebody will remember seeing her, or she'll do something stupid, or maybe she'll contact her lawyer and he'll tell her and she'll call the family. Or something. It always works this way. Hell, Buffalo Bill had the luck of the devil and I got him. Something will come up. It always does._

All of it was plausible. None of it helped.

* * *

The church that offered the women's shelter had smelled of dingy hope and pathetic dreams, and Dr. Lecter was glad to be out of it. Nonetheless, he was pleased with himself. He had reasoned that Claire Hansen would avoid the social-service agencies, but might resort to a church-run homeless shelter which might be more amenable to a falsely provided name. There had been two such shelters for women within walking distance of the bus station. The first one had indeed accepted a Claire Hansen, but they had asked her to leave. For being disruptive, they had said, although Dr. Lecter had his doubts as to that. Their body language had told another story: stiff, angry, covering something. No matter.

He stood in the middle of a Baltimore street, unafraid. It was daytime but cold in the city. He consulted his memory palace to look at the maps of Baltimore held therein. Where would she go if she had been kicked out of this shelter? Another? Perhaps. Yet it occurred to him that the asylum in which he had been held was not far away. From what he understood, it had become a common squatting ground for the homeless. In fact, Dr. Lecter realized, a block or so away from the church, the asylum was visible.

Might she have gone there? Now that he thought about it, he thought she had.

There were arguments for and arguments against. On the pro side was the fact that it was simply there, within sight. She would have stormed out of the church, angry, disappointed, not knowing what her next move was. It would have appeared a solution. It was also free. The other women at this shelter might have mentioned it. On the con side was the fact that it was not likely to be safe, not for a young woman on her own. Would that have been forefront in her mind? It didn't seem likely.

But there was something that impelled him towards the asylum. He had her scent, as it were. He had been able to deduce her actions so far and had not been wrong. He did not want whimsy to get in his way as it had before, and being too sure of himself was a form of whimsy. Yet even after all the careful checks, it was there. He simply knew it, as a wolf knows where his prey has gone.

He proceeded down the street, unmolested by the human flotsam around him. These streets contained lesser predators and weaker hunters, but none so much as set foot in his path as he strode. Perhaps they sensed what he was, on some basic level, realizing on a level far below consciousness that he was not to be trifled with.

Despite himself, Dr. Lecter found that he was quite enjoying himself. It had been a long time since he had a mission, or any sort of competition. This was all very amusing. First, of course, he would have to see if he had been correct.

The asylum was several blocks away, but grew steadily as he drew nearer. Dr. Lecter saw the walls that had once confined him, the storm fence he had only seen twice before, and passed through the same hole in the fence that Claire Hansen had previously passed through. Ahead, the building itself waited, impotent and powerless. Once it had held the most dangerous lunatics in the state; now it could only offer what housing it could to the destitute. How the mighty had fallen.

The front door was chained and locked, but several of the ground-floor windows were open, which Dr. Lecter used to enter the building where he had been held captive for eight years. There was no more Barney now; Barney was elsewhere in the world. No more Chilton either, the doctor thought, and smiled coldly. Dr. Chilton was also elsewhere in the world, or perhaps better said what was left of him.

Dr. Lecter tilted his head and looked around. The window had gotten him in past the Intake area; he was already in the secure part of the asylum. This was a medium security floor. The new inhabitants had decorated with a few beer cans, some cardboard boxes, and a battered television set, most likely stolen. ,From the smell of things, they had been using a corner for a latrine. His nose wrinkled in distaste. No, she would not have sheltered here, not with others around. Perhaps ten feet ahead was a staircase, leading up to what he believed had been offices, and downstairs to the Violent Men's Ward where he himself had been held.

Would they not have seen her, had she been here? No. It was day now; it would have been night when she entered. If they had been watching the television, and perhaps drunk too, she might have slipped by. Upstairs or downstairs? More likely downstairs; it was to his right, and a right-handed person would have first turned right. There were also thick steel doors protecting the downstairs stairwell. Unlocked, to be sure, but enough to hide behind.

Dr. Lecter put his hand in his pocket to ensure that his Harpy was convenient to hand and opened the door, proceeding down the stairs. In the faint light he could see some beer cans scattered in the corner. Then the double doors leading to the Violent Men's Ward. They were chained and padlocked shut. He frowned at that; had he been mistaken, after all?

He removed a small penlight from his coat pocket and studied the lock. Old, medium quality at best....ah. Fresh scratches on the shackle, gleaming bright against the dull surface. He took a moment to check the beer cans and discovered a sizable chunk of one missing. She – well, someone – knew how to shim a padlock, then. Another of the secret prison crafts.

A pity he had never had access to cans such as those. He could have come up with _all sorts _of things.

He proceeded onto the block where he had spent so long. It was as dark as he had remembered. There was no natural light from above, this being underground, and only a few light sockets overhead still worked. Still, he could see.

The cells were empty, occupied only by ghosts and dust. His footsteps were the sole sound in the dark hall. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out relatively fresh footprints where the dust had skirled about. Sneaker-type soles from the look of it, but very small, smaller than his own. It took only a moment to retrieve her prison records from his memory palace. Five feet tall, ninety-eight pounds, junkie-chic thin. Likely hers. They went all the way down the hall, to his former cell, and he followed.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter stood ruler-straight in front of his cell, in the place where Clarice Starling had stood so many years ago, and looked in. He was not by nature a sentimental man; but he had thought he might feel something – anger, hate, or even the exasperation of inconvenience. He did not. The cell had no power over him. It was merely a room, nothing more, as impotent as the rest of this sorry building.

Except no, it was not _just _a room. He looked around a few times, his head darting to and fro like that of a parrot. There There were fresh marks leading from a few cells down, where some moldy mattresses were stored, that led into the cell. The door hung open where it had once been bolted to the floor. The floor was dusty. There were footprints in the cell and the hallway outside. Those of his prey.

_She chose this cell. Does that mean anything? Most likely, she didn't want to have to sleep in a room with a barred door. _He would have to remember that. After Dr. Lecter had attacked the nurse, they had removed the bars from his door and put in the Plexiglass barrier, under the rationale that he could reach through bars but could not do so through solid walls. That barrier, too, hung open and disused. It had no more power than anything else in this once mighty fortress.

Dr. Lecter smiled coolly and stepped into the cell to see what he might see. There was a mattress – not his own – flopped onto the wire frame of his cot. The sink had a slight drip, suggesting recent use. He glanced down at the mattress and saw a dark hair much longer than his own on it. This, his first physical evidence of the existence of his prey, he lifted and held up to his nostrils. There was not much odor, and the general smell of mold and decay was hard to screen out, but it suggested cheap shampoo and not much of it recently.

He sat down on the cot, not wanting to lie down where he had lain so many times before. The smell of mold was unpleasant and he rose. For a moment, just for the fun of it, he sat down at his table and chair. They were still there, mostly because they were still bolted to the floor and not convenient for thieves.

It was quite amusing that she had spent a night in his cell, but he could not let himself become too distracted by that. She had spent one night here, within the past few days. Probably not more than that, because the cell was as empty of signs of her presence as it was of his own. Had she returned here, she would have likely obtained a few small comfort items: soap, a towel, perhaps a radio or a book. Those would have come with plastic wrapping, tags, bags, or some sort of disposable detritus to mark their passage from salable merchandise to personal items, and there were none. A quick check up and down the hall verified it.

_Very well. You came, you slept. In the morning you rose. Most likely you're an early riser, because prisons run early and you're still on that time rhythm. The day is new, likely your upstairs neighbors are not awake yet, and you can leave the asylum undisturbed. And go where? _

_You don't know the city; only what you may have heard from the church shelter and the denizens thereof. Unless you have a friend here that I don't know about, you won't approach anyone else, either. You need food, which you can find anywhere, but that may even come secondary; you can go without if you have to. No, what you need first is information, and a safe place to get it. You need a place where you can go and plan your next move, a place that costs nothing or very little. You have no reason to stay in Baltimore; you're going to continue to head north, because Baltimore is too close. You need...._

He moved back to his bunk and sat down on it, his eyes unseeing as the scene spooled out behind them.

_You need access to the Internet, don't you? You're eighteen years old, you have grown up with computers and you likely are quite familiar with them. With the Internet you can research ways to leave Baltimore and continue on your journey. Bus tickets, train tickets, shelters, it's all on the Internet. And someone in your position with so little resources is going to go to the library. Libraries offer free Internet access as well as telephone books and the like, and they may well have pay phones in the lobby if you need to make a phone call. And the closest library to here is...the Light Street branch. _

He rose and left the cell at a trot, dismissing it with nary a second glance. No one bothered him as he ran up the stairs, through the hall, and to the same window in which he had entered. The closest library here was Light Street, to be sure, but would she have known that? She wasn't local. Even so, a map from the bus station, or perhaps the homeless shelter, or even another denizen.

Dr. Lecter left his former prison to its brooding impotence and proceeded down the street. The library was not far and it took him less time to walk from the asylum to the library than it had from the shelter to the asylum. Pleasantly winded and exhilarated, he entered it. It took only a few moments to locate the area where Internet access was available to the public. They had it set up in a double row of cubicles that seemed soulless and corporate. There was a signup sheet, and Dr. Lecter took this and stared at it for several long seconds. Anyone watching him would have thought he read very slowly, mouthing the words. There. Eight names up from the bottom was a scrawled, girlishly written _Claire Morrigan. _It was repeated again four names down. Dr. Lecter nodded. The Morrigan, defender of the defenseless, the warhag, the goddess of Death and War.

_Juvenile, _Dr. Lecter thought, _and much too easy to guess. _

Nonetheless, he moved a pen over the signup sheet, signing nothing. The young man overseeing the computer desk nodded at him and smiled while chatting on his cell phone. Ms. Morrigan had taken the computer third from the right, and so he waited patiently until the person using it left. Then he sat down and took stock of the situation. The keyboard, monitor, and mouse were available, but the computer itself was not. The cables snaked down into a locked compartment. The computer would be there. He slouched forward while dipping his hand into his jacket pocket, where he took out a small leather case and a USB flash drive. The small leather case contained lockpicks. In the asylum, he had been forced to make his own tools. Now that he had his freedom, he had made it a rule to keep better tools handy.

Was the young man watching? No. Still speaking on his cell phone. Good. From the sounds of it, he was trying to arrange a date with a girl. Dr. Lecter wished him the best of luck. The lock on the compartment door was barely worthy of the name, and Dr. Lecter had it open in a moment. He was fortunate; there were USB ports on the front. He reached down and plugged in his flash drive. It took only a moment to register and display itself.

There were many programs on the flash drive, but the one Dr. Lecter wanted was quite simple: it would pull the machine's Internet history. Fortunately, no one had cleared it since his target had last used it. He would have to wade through quite a lot that had no interest for him, but once he had sifted out his prey's tracks from the others, it would be simple.

It did not take long, and Dr. Lecter observed what lay before him. She had gone to the web sites of several bus companies; that he could have predicted. The rest, though... He nodded again, this time with a bit of satisfaction. She had a plan, at least, rather than simply running with no clear end in sight. After reviewing her Internet history a bit more, he was cautiously impressed. She had done her homework, obviously. Not bad for a beginner; not bad at all. He saved the results to his flash drive and closed up the locked cabinet. Now he knew where she was going. That knowledge required some decisions.

First, he had to decide whether he should intercept her or simply allow her plan to run its course. Bringing her under his wing would give him the safest path to his goal, certainly. Yet all the same, it was not without its attendant risks. For now, he would shadow her and see if Clarice was closing in.

Privately, Dr. Lecter doubted that she would be. Clarice was many things to him: intelligent, hardworking, and incorruptible. She was also very predictable. She would be busily building the foundation of her investigation, doing what the FBI had trained her to do. It gave him a time advantage.

But eventually, Clarice would make her way to this very library. She would see the same name Dr. Lecter now saw. She would see what he was seeing now, and she would have the information he now had. That led him to his second decision: whether or not to delete the data on the computer while he could.

At the stroke of a button, he could delete the entire Internet history of the machine, thus erasing the tracks of his prey. More likely than not there would be a way to recover it, somehow. The question was whether or not that _would _happen. Could Clarice get this machine to the FBI's labs? Probably. Would she be able to do so in time? Of that he was not so sure.

Dr. Lecter visited a few of the websites she had gone to and double-checked a few figures. If all went as planned, the game would change a great deal in twenty-four hours. Should he assure his gain, or should he offer the FBI agent a fair chance?

His finger hovered over the delete key.

Strategy or sporting chance?

_Well, _Dr. Lecter thought, _it's likely she'll make it here, but unlikely she'll make it in time. _

He closed out and logged off the computer, then rose and headed out. In a few minutes he was in a taxi, heading back to his hotel. During the ride, he took a moment to think all of this over. Should he call Clarice, perhaps, and give her a few extra clues? No, he decided. Too much risk. For the time being, he would simply follow his prey. He was curious to see how well her plans might work. He was also curious if Clarice might realize something and catch up somehow. She'd surprised him before.

At the least, it would be fun to watch.

* * *

The bus station in Baltimore was about what Claire had expected. In a seedy part of town, it was run down and down at the heels. It smelled of rot and mold and worse, and the bathrooms were littered with a few syringes, used crackpipes, and the other detritus of the hopeless. The speaker overhead was barely intelligible, or perhaps the person using it spoke another language. The people around her creeped her out, particularly those who seemed to be leering at her like a piece of meat. They all looked like they'd just been released from prison – something she thought ruefully ironic. All there was to do was swallow and force herself to remember that she wouldn't be here long. She'd gotten her tickets and then gone to hide in the ladies' room. That hadn't been much of a sanctuary – there had been vomit on the floor and a few people snorting hits of something – but it was better than nothing and nobody bothered her in the stall she had chosen to occupy.

_Maybe I should have waited until the morning, _she thought, but that wouldn't have worked as well. Besides, she wanted to get moving. This dark and dreary world was only an interlude; things would get better.

She had only a cheap backpack she'd bought in Baltimore, along with a few other things she would need. The bus ticket had been the most expensive. What remained of her money was in her right shoe. It would have to do from here. She did not want to lift any more wallets, easy as it had been. This would be the start of a new life, and if she couldn't start it a hundred percent clean, she would at least keep the dirt to an absolute minimum.

The bus pulled up, and a bored employee herded the passengers from the dirty boarding area to the bus. A few other uniformed employees inspected carry-on bags. After the bags, they ran a wand over the passenger before letting them through. Claire tensed at that; it brought back bad memories. Her own inspection was desultory. The one guard spent four seconds examining the contents of her backpack, and the wand brought up nothing more than the snap on her jeans. Thus cleared, she proceeded onto the bus.

It was elderly and smelled of burning fumes. The floor was grimy. The seat she chose had a ripped armrest. Claire sat down and waited. None of it mattered. It was temporary, just temporary, and everything would be okay in the end. Somehow.

An older woman who reeked of cigarette smoke sat down next to Claire and coughed. Claire provided a dim smile and leaned back against her seat. It seemed to take forever before the bus driver finally closed the door and pulled away. Then the bus was trundling slowly towards the highway.

_Another day, _Claire thought. _Just one more day, and then things will be okay. _


	6. Waypoint

Claire Hansen shouldered her backpack and stretched. Her back hurt and her legs felt numb. The bus trip had taken all night and most of the day. She'd had her first transfer in New York City, which had been pretty scary. Then again in White River Junction. This was the end of her bus trip. A place she had never been before, and didn't think she would ever come back to. And now, she walked out of the bus station and shivered. She reached into the backpack and pawed around for a printout. She had printed these out in the library in Baltimore. The next leg of her journey was going to be on foot.

It was cold outside, much colder than she was used to. Gooseflesh pimpled her arms. She had no coat, and felt the lack of it. She had no gloves either, and stuffed them into her pockets to try and shield them from the cold. Occasional winds blew and whipped right through her clothing. There was snow on the ground, crunching under her shoes as she walked. That was novel; it snowed in the winter in Virginia sometimes, but never this early. And there surely was never this much of it; it came up to her ankles. Still, it meant something that she was here, free, and able to see it. It looked fresh and pure and clean.

She wasn't. She didn't feel it. After sixteen hours of travel in a dirty, smelly bus with a bunch of scary-looking people, Claire Hansen would be quite content if she went the rest of her life without ever seeing a bus again. For now, she had to hoof it, and so she walked out of the Greyhound bus station in Burlington, Vermont.

According to the maps she had, the University of Vermont was a mile and a half away from the bus station. That would be what? Twenty minutes? It felt like much more because of the cold and the wind-chill. There was only one thing to do, though, and that was press on, one foot in front of the other.

According to the printouts, she had to head east, then north at US 7, then east again. Cars drove past, indifferent to her. That was bad and good, she supposed. No one here knew her or knew she was here. She felt alone and ignored, but all the same, there was a feeling of revelry in her freedom. According to her estranged family, she wasn't supposed to be here. Well, it wouldn't exactly kill them to not get what they wanted once in a while. If she was fortunate, she would be able to slide through Burlington without leaving a trace.

As she walked, she occasionally took her printouts out of her backpack. Pulling them out let her read them but exposed her hands to the cold. She swapped off, trying desperately to keep one hand at least somewhat warm.

By the time she trudged up to the University's buildings, her hands and cheeks were numb, her thighs unpleasantly cold in her cheap jeans. The university was full of people, mostly her age. They looked so young and carefree, chatting with friends, easy in a world that never turned on them. She knew intellectually they were her own age, but she felt quite different from them. Many had cars, usually with bumper stickers that advertised political causes or marijuana leaves. Claire didn't have any interest in politics and couldn't afford pot. Only a few people looked at her, and most paid her no attention whatsoever.

The Internet had let her do a bit of research. There was a student center, there were dining halls, but she did not have a map and didn't know where they were. She didn't want to ask for a map, either. The best way to get through this would be to act like she belonged. In prison they called it skating; going to a housing block you didn't belong on. If you acted like you had every right to be there, people often assumed you did.

All the same, she was an interloper. She didn't have a right to be here, and she would do well to minimize her presence here. She would have to be careful, and her knowledge of where things were was pretty limited. But there were signs and she could get what she needed just by following the crowd and keeping her eyes open.

Ahead was a residence hall, according to the sign. Claire slowed her pace, keeping her eye on the door. There were keycard readers, and she had no keycard. But there were plenty of students heading out to class, and it was simple enough to slip in the door as so many were exiting. She smiled to herself. This much was easy.

Here was a large, airy atrium. Claire turned and headed down the first hall she found. Many of the rooms had little white message boards up on the doors, with the names of the residents written on them. Thus, it was a simple matter to determine that she had found a wing that was occupied by female students. Hardly anyone looked at her, and she looked at no one herself. The students flowed around her like a stream flowed around a rock, barely registering her presence. In a way, she had to laugh. It was like a prison housing block, only less secure.

She would have been more likely to get in trouble if she had tried to enter someone's room. For a moment she toyed with the idea; she needed a coat badly and she might be able to swipe one from a room. Then she dismissed the idea. Not when she had gotten this close. Besides, anyone who had a coat would be wearing it. Better to stick to the plan.

Claire enacted this plan by looking for, and finding, a door marked WOMEN. These were residential halls. The bathrooms would have not only toilets but showers. She'd been released only with the clothes on her back and had little time for hygiene in her flight. After the bus trip, her clothes were rumpled and she smelled bad.

The bathroom was nothing fancy; cinder-block walls and ugly yellow paint. Four sinks, three toilets, and three shower stalls. One shower stall was occupied. Claire entered an empty one and closed the curtain. Then she put her backpack down on the wooden shelf that was provided there.

From it, she took two small bottles, one of shampoo and one of conditioner, and a towel. These bore the logo of a hotel in Baltimore. After buying the things she would need, she had very little money, and these were easy enough to get: she'd just walked into a fancy hotel in Baltimore, marched up to the housekeeping desk, and asked. They'd given her the soap and shampoo. Then she had just gone into the swimming pool and gotten herself two towels. Well, it wasn't anything that everybody didn't do. She also had taken a few plastic bags. Carefully, she stripped off her dirty, smelly clothes and put them in the bag. At some point she would need to find a laundromat. Was there one here? Was it worth trying? Probably not. The wrappers also went into the bag. Better to leave no trace, and she preferred it orderly.

Claire stepped into the shower stall and turned on the water. That, at least, was better than the bathrooms in prison, which were often dirty and moldy and would infect you with various kinds of fungus if you went barefoot in them. The water was hot and warm and she felt much better as she soaped herself up and washed her hair. She took a long time in the shower, enjoying the simple pleasures of hot water, cleanliness, and the giddy realization that she was actually hundreds of miles from the people who wanted to make her life miserable, and no one in the world knew where she really was.

After toweling off, Claire took from her backpack a knit black dress that fell to below her knees, a pair of black tights, and a pair of cheap flats that she regretted buying. The dress didn't look terrible after its sojourn in the backpack, all things considered, but she hung it on a hook and ran the shower for another ten minutes to try and steam some of the wrinkles out of it. The shirt and jeans would have been better for blending in, but they were disgusting and and she didn't want to touch them until they'd been washed, and maybe boiled.

She dressed quickly and checked herself in the mirror. Not too bad. She looked somewhat like what she used to, except that she had no makeup. Well, she'd get that when she could afford it. She exhaled sharply; she was tired from staying up all night and couldn't manage to sleep. It was ironic; this building was chock full of beds, but she couldn't sleep in any of them.

Instead, she picked up her backpack and went outside. The dress was thin and offered even less protection from the cold than her jeans had, but it was dry and clean. She should have checked the weather in Baltimore; she would have bought a coat if she'd known it was going to be so cold.

But she hadn't, and the only thing she could do was keep an eye out and see if she could swipe one quietly. It wasn't like these kids couldn't afford it; from what she'd seen they all had money. At the least, they had plenty of clothes and knew where their next meal was coming from and where they would sleep tonight.

Well, she knew where her next meal was coming from. The student center was not hard to find, and although Claire lacked the magic keycard that these students had, she was able to buy a cup of coffee and a sausage-and-egg croissant with her dwindling supply of cash. Should she try to pick a few pockets? It looked easy enough; there were plenty of kids chatting on cell phones while leaving wallets and purses completely unguarded.

No, she decided. Not now. The university had its own police force, and they would be quick to pounce on her. Once her true identity came to light there would be problems. Not now.

The croissant and coffee were good, especially since she had only brought a bottle of water and five snickers bars to sustain her on her trip. She still had two candy bars and refilled the water bottle at a drinking fountain. Now she had some time to kill.

She spent an hour at the student center, reading a castoff newspaper. After that, she decided to move operations to the library, which she had been able to locate from the printouts she had. No one gave her a second look there. There were tables and desks and couches around to sit down on. She parked herself in a soft chair and wondered if it might be safe to sleep for a bit. No, she decided. Better to stay alert. She would look for books to read. In just a moment. Just a moment....

In what seemed like a moment later, she snapped awake, her heart pounding. Quickly she took stock of her surroundings. Everyone around her seemed to be calm; there were no uniformed officers over her asking what was wrong. Her backpack was still there and she grabbed it, pawing through the contents. Everything seemed there.

Claire took several deep breaths to calm herself, and then reached into the backpack again. From it, she extracted a cell phone and turned it on. This had been one of her purchases in Baltimore, and right now it was one of the most important things she owned. It took a few moments to power up and get a signal, informed her that she had _27 service days remaining, _and then displayed the time. 3:45.

3:45. Good. She hadn't missed it. In fact, she had a bit of time. She went to the bathroom, still shaking and nervous, and examined herself critically in the mirror. She had to calm down. Next came the last part. After this, everything would be okay.

After getting some water, she went down to the library atrium and waited a little bit, until the digital display on her phone read 4:00. Then she waited just a few more minutes, staring anxiously at the numbers as if force of will would make them move faster. When she decided she'd waited enough, she called the only number stored in the phone's phonebook.

A few rings echoed in her ear, and she tensed, illogically nervous. What if this didn't work out? What would she do? She didn't have the money for another ticket, and there wasn't much mass transit in Vermont, anyway. She sat down and scanned her surroundings again. Was anyone looking at her?

Her thoughts were broken by a friendly voice. "Hello,"

"Hi," Claire said, and swallowed. "This is Claire. From the ride-share board?"

The young man on the other end of the line – Dave, according to her email – sounded jocular and friendly. "Oh yeah! How ya doing? How was your trip up?"

"Just fine," Claire said. "Where should I meet you? I'm at the library."

"Oh," he said. "I can meet you there. Sure, give me a few minutes."

"I'll be here," she said tightly.

It was the first real human contact she'd had in a while, and for some reason her pulse was pounding in her ears. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Maybe she should have found another way. No, this was the only way to accomplish her goal. Her stomach churned and roiled.

In what seemed like an eternity but was really ten minutes or so by the clock, a young man strolled into the library. He wore a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt covered with a heavy parka and had longish hair. He looked around the atrium, and Claire made herself smile.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Claire Morgan." That was the name she was traveling under, or close enough. The name on the fake ID she'd gotten in Richmond said _Morrigan, _but it had been just as easy to give this guy the name _Morgan, _which was more common.

"Dave Collins," he said, offering his hand. Claire took it. "I'm parked outside."

Claire was proud of this part. She'd been able to get a bus ticket to Burlington, but had run into a problem after that. There was very little mass transit in Vermont, and it had seemed at first that there had been no way to get where she was going. But, she had reasoned, Vermont was full of environmentalists and liberals and hippies, an idea that her short time at the university had done nothing to dispel. Therefore, if there weren't any buses, there would be something. Something where these people could reduce their carbon footprint or whatever and feel good about it. It had to be out there, and she had found it: a ride-sharing board on the Internet.

She'd created an email account at the library, signed up for the ride-sharing board, and there she had found this fellow. She had bought the phone from a drugstore near the library, along with an hour's airtime card for it. Then she had activated the phone over the Internet at the library again, and provided the number to this fellow, who was going exactly where she needed to go – or at least partway, and partway was better. It was a risk – she'd be in the car with him for a while. He might be a serial killer or something like that, but she doubted it. He didn't look like one. He might remember her, but she had rehearsed a story on the bus trip up. She was a college student in Baltimore, traveling without much money, and the rest she would make up. With any luck, Claire thought after giving him a once-over, he'd remember that much and a few bong hits would obscure the rest.

Snow crunched under their feet as they proceeded to a battered Honda with several bumper stickers on the back. One in particular caught her eye; it read RESPECT YOUR MOTHER and had a picture of the planet Earth next to it. That made Claire a bit more at ease. Respecting mother Earth was something she still believed in, even if it seemed like Mother Earth hadn't made life easy for her lately.

"So how much should I give you?" she asked, rummaging in her backpack. "I'd like to get this out of the way. What do you want? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?"

The young man shrugged his shoulders. "Ten's fine," he said. "Hey, do you have a coat?"

Claire shook her head. "I know. It's cold."

"It's worse than cold. They say this is the worst winter up here in twenty years."

"I'll get one when I get where I'm going," she said lightly. "I'm having somebody meet me once we get there. We'll stop off and get one."

"Okay," the young man said, and unlocked the doors. Claire got in the passenger side and handed him a ten dollar bill for gas. The young man revved the engine and then pulled out. The highway wasn't far away.

"It's nice up here," she said absently, looking at the scenery.

"Oh yeah, real nice," he said. "You're from Baltimore?"

"I go to school there," Claire said. "I'm from Arkansas. Little Rock, actually." A Yankee from this far north would be unlikely to know the difference in accents. If she turned up her drawl she would be okay. Once she was out of the car, she remembered, she would have to talk more like they did to blend in.

As the car pulled onto the highway, she leaned her head back. _Just a little bit longer, _she told herself. _Just a little bit longer, and things will be okay. _

* * *

Dr. Lecter was rather glad that his target was no longer riding the bus. Catching up with the bus from Baltimore to New York City had been quite easy, but then he'd had to park his van while she transferred buses. Parking in New York City was always inconvenient, and quite a nuisance when arriving late at night. After getting out of New York, it had been quite easy to follow her from there. He had not attempted to approach her; he had simply observed the bus and followed at a distance. Her guard would be up and if approached by a strange man she would have viewed him as a threat.

Following her from the bus station to the university had taken a bit of thinking; he'd simply pulled into a parking lot to watch her walk. Once she had gotten onto the University grounds, he had stayed further away. A young woman like her blended right in; an older man like him did not. Once she had made it to the library, Dr. Lecter had sat nearby, and then she had fallen asleep. He had been tempted to approach her then, but she would have likely responded with the same distrust, and he could not think of a way to spirit her out of the library without attracting too much attention. Besides, better to let her keep going on her own. The more of her own resources she used up, the more amenable she would be when he finally made his move. Besides, he reflected, Clarice was still far behind. There was no need to hurry.

Now, she was in a car. It was much easier for him to follow the car as it headed north. He didn't even need to follow too closely, because he knew where they were going. He reflected on the information he knew, and the fact was, her plan was not bad. There were better ways she could have hidden herself and a few mistakes she had made, but all in all, not bad at all. He believed that it would most likely work. However, she had gone about as far as she could on her own; left to her own devices she would likely end up as easy prey for Clarice. With his tutelage and guidance, she could be safe and the symphony could begin.

Dr. Lecter thought about what the family must be going through. The prosecutor's illness would be painful enough. Knowing that the one person in the world who could help most was not in their power must be excruciating. Perhaps, once Claire was safely under his control, he could find a way down there in order to see it himself. That would be much more interesting than the church collapses he had collected while incarcerated. It would be much more personal. What would a family accustomed to power in their small town do when they found themselves powerless? What would a prosecutor – an accuser – do when confronted with the fact that she was now the one found wanting? How would a judge who had held the fate of so many in his hands react when not he but another held the power of life and death? And how might Clarice Starling cope with seeing a lamb die once again despite her best efforts?

The part that he liked best was that it was completely, absolutely legal. No law required Claire Hansen to submit blood or bone marrow for the sake of another. In fact, Dr. Lecter had found in his research that the only court case that had directly dealt with such a matter had specifically stated that while a refusal to donate might be morally reprehensible, no court in the country could _order _such a thing involuntarily. The irony was simply irresistible.

Dr. Lecter wondered what Clarice Starling would think of that. Would she cross over and simply become a mercenary? He doubted it, but he also found it hard to believe that she would simply walk back to her new employers, hand them her notes, and walk away. No, she was too righteous for that. Could that righteousness become self-righteousness? Was she was incorruptible as he had once thought? On one hand he hoped not, but he thought it might. If she crossed the line it would be with the best of intentions. In any case, finding out would be a lot of fun.

However, he was getting ahead of himself. For now he was just following her, although the independent part of her journey would soon come to an end. If he was successful, very shortly Claire would be under his protection, and he would hide her away so well that not even Clarice could find her – at least not until it was too late.

Dr. Lecter sped up a bit, eyed the rear end of the battered Honda a quarter-mile away, and smiled. Soon.

* * *

When the old methods didn't work, you tried the new ones. Clarice Starling's gumshoeing effort in Richmond had only rewarded her with sore feet and frustration. Eventually, she had concluded that Claire Hansen had not gone to anyone she knew for help, other than possibly her defense attorney. Personally, Clarice thought that the defense attorney knew something. Unfortunately, she also knew that getting him to cough up her whereabouts would be damned near impossible, not in the time frame they had. The other thing he had said clanged at her. They didn't have a warrant or even a missing persons report. She'd have to talk to the Hansens on that.

But in the meantime, the question had come to her: if Claire had not gone to anyone she knew for help, then what _had _she done?

Either try and settle in or get the hell out of Dodge. Of the two, Clarice thought getting the hell out of Dodge more likely. It made sense: get across a state line and make it that much harder for the good guys. Once she had concluded that Claire hadn't gone to anyone she knew, she had moved on to the next step.

She'd gone to the bus companies and Amtrak and gotten a list of passenger lists for every train or bus that had left Richmond. Happily, her FBI credentials got her those lists without too much fuss. Unhappily, they had given her paper lists rather than electronic. She was in the office today, but there was precious little to do, and she had plenty of time to go over them.

Clarice glared at the office wall for a moment, annoyed by its sickly yellow color. Reading anything in this tiny cell tended to give her a headache. Still, she pressed on, a pen in hand, ticking off names as she went. Names in block letters, LASTNAME FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME FIRSTNAME, and she'd been staring at these damn lists for hours now, and her eyeballs felt like they were going to explode. And damn but she wanted a cup of coffee.

And then she saw it.

MORRIGAN CLAIRE.

_Same first name, _Clarice thought. _Same first name, and the buses aren't too picky about ID, so you probably did what every other eighteen-year-old in the world does and got yourself a fake ID from a head shop or something. _

Two minutes of web searching told her that the Morrigan was a Celtic goddess, popular in neopagan religions. Whether she was a goddess of war or fertility or death or all three seemed to be a bone of contention, and not one Clarice was particularly interested in. It didn't matter, really. What mattered was that now she knew where her target had gone and what alias she was using.

She also knew that Claire Hansen had bought a bus ticket from Richmond to Baltimore and arrived a few days ago. That was good. Finally, some progress.

Not exactly, she thought. She didn't _know _that Claire Morrigan was Claire Hansen; it just seemed to be very likely. It wouldn't be too hard to call one of them and see if they had anything with a signature. Then again, maybe she should go there herself. For one thing, they might have security cameras there. For another, people were more likely to blow off a voice on the phone than an FBI agent standing right in front of them.

Thoughtfully, she tapped a pen against her front teeth. Richmond or Baltimore? They were both about the same distance from Quantico. The main reason to favor Richmond was that Clarice _knew _her target had been there. But she wasn't there anymore, and she didn't want to go where the trail was cold. She had a whiff of the scent; she wanted to follow it.

Seventy-odd miles to Richmond. But then she'd be even further away from Baltimore. But what if the Claire Morrigan lead turned out to be wrong? Well, she decided, then she'd only have wasted a trip to Baltimore. Feeling confident and sure of herself, Clarice reached for her bag and dug for her keys.

"Going somewhere, Agent Starling?"

Clarice jerked in surprise and wheeled on the voice, only to discover Joan, the unit secretary, looking in at her with a dim smile.

"You scared me," she said.

"I'm sorry," Joan said. "Agent Parker has a class coming in this afternoon, and he wanted to know if you could set up a scene for him."

Clarice's throat worked. She smiled back dumbly on reflex. Dammit, she had a girl to find and a life to save. Why the hell did she need to be dragging around corpses? Couldn't it wait? Then the sense of duty and precision that had driven her through college rose up, reminding her sternly that there was work to be done, and those who did their work were the ones who succeeded. Parker was a decent guy, as Academy instructors went, and she set about the task of staging a murder for him with precision if not enthusiasm.

All the same, she felt she was missing something.


	7. Prevail

_Finally, _Clarice thought. _Some goddam headway. _

She came back from staging the murder scene and sat down to work on her real job. Claire Hansen was travelling under the name Claire Morrigan. Okay, fine. She had gone to Baltimore. Okay, that was fine too. Was she there now? Clarice sure hoped so.

So once she had staged another murder scene, she didn't stick around Quantico. There wasn't anything there for her except the opportunity to make a few quick phone calls to bus companies and scan Baltimore arrest records. The arrest records had nothing, and the bus companies promised to call her back. She had the scent, and she wanted to run with it. So, with a few mumbled excuses about 'something to take care of', she had left for Baltimore.

Now she stood in the doorway to the bus station, looking out at a slummy section of the city. The bus station itself wasn't any better. It smelled like mold and urine, and she could sense the danger around her. But that didn't matter: Claire Hansen had been here. Right in this very doorway, perhaps. Clarice stopped and thought. She had to think like Claire. Think like a kid, on the run. Smart, maybe, but sheltered and not terribly experienced in the world.

There was a cynical part of her that said the first place she ought to check was the Baltimore city morgue, but she sat on it for now. For some reason, she didn't think that the kid was dead yet. Hopefully not, because if she was, then her sister was likely to die too.

No, that wasn't just false hope. Everyone she'd talked to had indicated that Claire was withdrawn. No Miss Congeniality, was her prey. That unsociable nature of hers might serve to keep her alive, at least for long enough for Clarice to close in.

_Let's see, _Clarice thought. _Nowhere to go, you don't know anyone here...where are you gonna go? Homeless shelter, probably. But you're on the run. Are you going to go to Baltimore social services? _

Probably not. Not yet, anyway. She had been traveling under another name, and she hadn't contacted anyone she'd known before. Claire didn't seem to want to make a very big footprint. She might well think that Baltimore city welfare agencies would report her presence to the police. That wasn't true – the good Lord knew how many wanted felons were satisfied recipients of state largesse – but an eighteen-year-old might not know that.

Well, where the hell would she go, then? Find an alley in which to sleep? That was possible, but Clarice didn't think so. She sure hoped not, because it was incredibly dangerous. No, Clarice thought, if Claire had been that unaware of the dangers out there she would have hitchhiked rather than take the bus.

So, then, where? A hotel? That would depend on how much money she had, and Clarice didn't think she had a lot. No, she found herself thinking that the homeless shelter was the likeliest option. She wouldn't need ID, she could give a false name if she wanted, and she could move on if she wanted to. And if a city homeless shelter wasn't where she was going, then it would be a church. Religion wouldn't be much of a factor; pagan or not, Claire had a choice: go to a church where she could lie her little face off, or go to social services, where she might be able to get away with lying and might not.

So...where? The odds were pretty good that Claire didn't know Baltimore very well. Would she be stupid or desperate enough to ask someone in the bus station for help? If so, who? A security guard? It would be a sensible choice, sure, but would a woman recently released from prison go to someone in a uniform for help? Only one way to find out.

Clarice strode through the smelly, dirty hall and flagged down the first security guard she could find – a tall, muscular black man who seemed to burst out of his uniform. He was bald, and had a calm, relaxed, confident mien. Starling read him as the type who would end fights rather than start them. She was queerly reminded of Barney for a moment: this man had that same air of cool professionalism in a dirty world.

"Excuse me. Sir?" she asked. "Are you busy?"

He turned and observed her slowly, matching her courtesy with his own. "No, I'm not. Can I help you?"

She showed her ID. "I'm Special Agent Clarice Starling. Could I ask you a few questions?"

His eyes widened for just a moment. "Sure. Let's go to the security office. Let me get my supervisor."

Clarice shrugged. "If you want. Or we could just do it here. You're not under any suspicion or anything." It was often easier to let them think they were in charge and accomplish things a little more softly. She pocketed her ID and produced her copy of Claire's mug shot. "I just need to know if you've seen this woman. She came into the Baltimore terminal yesterday."

He looked at the photo for a few seconds, and she saw recognition flash across his face. "What did she do?"

"She's a runaway," Clarice said. "It's not...it's not really a federal thing. Her family's worried about her, and I'm just trying to help them out. No court, no charges, nothing like that. You know."

He nodded, that cool professionalism sliding over his momentary surprise. "Old story," he commented. "Yeah, I saw her. Bout seven o'clock last night, on the bus out of Richmond. Little thing, right?" His voice fluttered higher then, in a surprisingly good copy of Sarah Hansen's – and presumably Claire's-- accent. "With a little ol ' drawl y'all could just _die _for?"

Clarice chuckled despite herself. A bolt of savage pleasure struck through her, something baser and more elemental than mere humor. She had the scent. "That's her," she quipped.

"She asked about homeless shelters. Real polite, which you usually don't get here." He gestured at his shabby surroundings with a slight grin Clarice liked. "I told her about two that are close. One's through the city, one's through church. She got in too late to make the city one, so I'd bet she tried the church."

_Ha. I was right. _

The address he gave her was close enough to walk. It had to be, she realized. Better to leave the Mustang in the parking garage where it sheltered rather than park it on the street in _this _neighborhood. At least that way she'd stand half a chance of it still being there when she returned.

The shelter wasn't far away, and it wasn't much. Harsh fluorescent lights illuminated dirty linoleum. A bored woman sat at a shabby desk. The walls were covered with hand-lettered signs. _No alcohol! No fighting! All personal possessions in your locker only. _Bible verses under those: _I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. _It reminded her of the dour, unforgiving charity of the Lutheran Home in Bozeman.

But she was no longer a powerless orphan; she was an FBI agent. The bored woman turned when she came in and smiled tiredly. "Do you need some help?"

Clarice flashed her badge. "Yes, ma'am, I do, but I'm not homeless. I'm looking for someone who might have stayed at this facility within the past few days."

Surprise flashed over the woman's tired features for a moment. "I see. Who would you be looking for?"

Clarice showed her mugshot. "This young woman. Her name is Claire Hansen. She may have registered under the name Claire Morrigan, or Morgan."

The flash of recognition and distaste that followed the surprise was as quick as a shutter click, but not quick enough to evade Clarice's notice. Yes, this woman knew something.

"She's no longer here," the woman said stiffly.

"So she was?" Clarice pressed.

"Briefly. She was disruptive and we asked her to leave."

"How long was she here?" Clarice continued. "Did she eat here? Get a bed here?"

The woman shook her head. "She...she was disruptive. We expect a certain level of behavior, you know."

"Did you direct her anywhere when she left?"

The woman swallowed nervously. It was pretty clear that this woman was covering up for something; she couldn't lie worth crap. Whatever had happened, though, they'd kicked her out or she'd left.

"We didn't have time. We told her to behave and she just left."

"I see," Clarice said distantly. Silence reigned uncomfortably for a few minutes.

"That happens sometimes," the woman said irritably.

"I'm sure. Did she sign a book or anything? Do you have any proof she was here? Or a report that she was asked to leave?"

The woman swallowed. _Yes, _Clarice read from her body. "No," she said.

"Are you sure of that? I'm looking for her, and I'm not looking to make trouble for you. But I need the truth. Does this shelter get any federal money? Because if it does, then federal law applies, and you know, you have to provide service to people regardless of their religion."

"We do," the woman said uncomfortably. "Of _course _we do."

"Well, then," Clarice said. "I'm sure there's an incident report or something. I'd rather appreciate it if you'd double-check on that for me. If there's a report, I want to see it. If there's anything with her name on it, I want to see it. If you do that for me, I'll keep looking for her and leave you alone."

The woman shifted and glared at Clarice. "There isn't--," she began.

"I'd appreciate it if you double-checked with your manager," Clarice said inexorably.

The woman scowled, picked up a phone and spoke into it. Then she rose and walked away, her tattered sneakers squeaking against the floor. Clarice sighed.

"Hey," said a croaking voice.

Clarice turned around. The woman who stood in front of her was not her prey. She was taller than Clarice, but stooped. She wore a stained, battered jacket and shapeless corduroy pants. Battered, filthy sneakers were on her feet. Her face was dirty and ringed with stringy grey hair, her eyes somewhat bloodshot.

"Yes?" Clarice asked.

"That girl? She was here." A red, wrinkled hand flapped at the staff. "They ain't gonna tell you. They kicked her out." The crone emitted a cackle. "She was a satan worshipper, I guess. Had one-a them...," Instead of finishing her sentence, the woman drew an uneven star in the air and circled it with a bony finger.

Clarice nodded. "Do you know where she went?"

The woman's eyes narrowed slyly. "Maybe," she said craftily. "Who's asking?"

Clarice reached into her bag without taking her eyes off the woman, a skill she had long mastered. She felt for her wallet and drew a bill out. "Andrew Jackson," she answered, displaying the twenty.

A withered claw reached out. Clarice handed her the bill, hoping she hadn't just given up twenty bucks for nothing. The woman coughed for a moment and then pointed up the street.

"They kicked her out," the woman repeated. "I'd been talking with her. She seemed nice. So I tole her bout the empty silum up a ways."

"Silum?" Clarice asked, although had her suspicions as to what the woman meant.

"Yeah. The nuthatch. The one they closed down. Lots of rooms. Lots of places to sleep, if you're not too picky. In some parts of it they even get the lectricity on now and then. Cept the damn city keeps coming and turning it off. Violation of rights, I say."

Clarice nodded again. She was torn. Part of her was elated to still have the scent. Claire had been here, all right, and she had the trail at last. And what she knew of Baltimore matched up with the woman's story. The shelter was not too far from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Clinically Insane – only about a half mile or so. That had its own disturbing thoughts. What was worse was that she knew that homeless people sheltered there. In the years since Dr. Lecter had returned, the state had finally cut the funding for the caretaker.

Still..._there? _

Well, if that was where the kid was, that was where she was. Clarice steeled herself, bid the woman goodbye, nad headed for the asylum. It wasn't too far – once again, within walking distance. All the same, she went back to her car – there was equipment in it she would need. There was a flashlight, a camera, and a few other things. Mostly, she needed the flashlight, but she had the whole thing in a small shoulder bag she could take along with her, so she did.

The asylum was close enough, and there was a nice big hole in the fence. She strode through that and made her way inside. There was a window open, and she cocked her head and stared at it for a few moments. Why was it open? She could see leaving it unlocked, but not open. Well, hell, it barely mattered.

Squeezing in, she immediately had her flashlight and pistol ready. There were a few shapes in the darkness. Clarice shone the light in their general direction, revealing a few unshaven, smelly men wrapped up in blankets. They grunted and groaned, raising their hands against the intrusion of her light. The aroma of cheap beer and unwashed flesh hit her nose.

"What the hell?" asked one of them.

Clarice raised her voice. "Your attention, please," she said. "I'm a federal officer. I'm looking for someone. I have no particular interest in any of you other than that. I have no interest in rousting you, arresting you, or doing anything to you. If you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. If you attempt to interfere with me, you will suffer severe personal injury when I bust a cap in your ass."

A few more muzzy, sleep-riddled grunts were her acknowledgement.

"Thank you," Clarice added cheerfully. "Now, then. Was there a young woman here? About five foot tall, black hair, green eyes? About a hundred pounds?" She didn't want to pull out the mugshot; that would mean putting down her flashlight or gun.

"No, ain't nobody like that here," one of them said.

Clarice believed him. A young woman on the run with any sense in her head would not want men like these as roommates. Not unless she was completely out of money and hope. Hope Clarice didn't know about, but she believed her prey had some money left.. She shifted the light away from them but not the gun or her eyes. Not until she was very, very satisfied that the bums here weren't going to rush her did she shift her eyes. The gun never wavered.

There was a stairwell directly in front of her on her right, one she remembered. It led to the Violent Men's Ward. Down where she had once been before. Down where _he _had been.

And on the floor right near it was a very small footprint. To Clarice, it looked like a sneaker print. More importantly, it was small, even smaller than her own. Claire Hansen was little, and she had little feet.

"I'm going to go down there, now," Clarice said. "Anyone down there?"

"Nope," grumbled a voice.

"Okay. As you were, guys. Have fun. I will tell you: anyone follows me down, I start shooting. Bottom line."

"Fine," said another. "Can youse...can youse just let us sleep now?"

Clarice decided that the bums were unlikely to bother her. Had she been too hard? Maybe, but nothing to be done for it now. She proceeded down the steps, occasionally turning to make sure none of them got brave. None of them did. Her footsteps echoed in the stairwell. She was very, very glad she kept a flashlight in her car. Holding it as she had been trained, away from her body in her left hand, .45 in the right, she proceeded into the gloomy darkness.

The Violent Men's Ward was completely still and dark. Clarice shone her light briefly on the double doors that had once secured madmen. There was a chain and padlock on it, but the padlock was unlocked. Not that that would have stopped her; it was the sort a former technical agent like herself could have open in a trice. One look at it, even in this crappy light, told her that someone had shimmed it. The shackle was scratched. Okay. Good. She pushed one door open and glanced around uneasily, feeling the ghosts of voices past in her mind.

There were more footsteps in the dust. Two sets, she saw. One set was pretty small, and she grinned tightly at those. They looked like sneaker prints. Same as upstairs.

The other set was larger, but not too large – whoever it was had feet that weren't too much bigger than her own. Men's dress shoes, from the looks of them. For a moment, she swallowed nervously at that, but then she dismissed it. Probably just a bum wearing whatever shoes he could get.

Both sets of footprints reached down the hall. Down to _his _cell. Clarice felt grim fear rise up in her throat and forced it back down.

Should she try to take a picture of the footprints? It was standard procedure in the FBI, but it didn't really matter here. There was a digital camera in her bag, but she didn't really want to take it out and put her gun down. It was also very dark. After debating it for a few moments, she turned around so she would hear anyone coming after her, put her gun down, and got the camera out. The flash lit the gloomy ward for a few seconds, and she realized too light she'd screwed up her night vision. Well, it would come back, and in the off chance that one of the bums upstairs decided to get cute, she fully intended to make good on her threat.

Well, since both sets of footprints went down to his cell, Clarice followed them. Her tongue felt dry as she wondered what the second set meant. Had someone followed Claire? Found her? Captured her? Killed her? This was not the sort of place that a woman on her own ought to be. The weight of the .45 was comforting in her hand.

Clarice Starling stood where she had once stood so many years ago and faced Dr. Lecter's empty cell. For a moment she trembled, remembering the things he had told her – both about Buffalo Bill and about herself. Then afterwards, after the Fulton Fish Market. She remembered standing in his cell, in his space. How empty it had seemed then, and yet how darkly tempting.

The sets of footprints – both sets – went into the cell.

Clarice swallowed nervously and felt the grip of her pistol grow slick with sweat. _Calm down and do your job. _

The cell was almost empty. No books, no drawings, not even so much as a scrap of paper. But it was not totally empty. No. She was missing something, something just beyond her comprehension, something....the bunk!

The bunk. There was a mattress on it. Meaning somebody had yanked it out of one of the other cells and brought it in.

Had this cell been used to secure Claire Hansen, perhaps? Keep her prisoner for some snuffling madman as he took out his killing tools? Clarice looked around, trying to keep frosty, keep her game on, not lose her head. It was damned hard in this space. She could hear his voice in her head, alternately taunting and polite.

Biting down hard on her lip helped her focus, as pain can do.

She studied the frame of the bunk carefully. The bunk was old and rusty, and more importantly there were no marks that might suggest someone had been tied to it. This particular cell had been designed for Dr. Lecter to be kept in more or less permanently; securing it required thick steel bolts. No, if someone had captured Claire, they would have been much more likely to lock her in one of the other cells, which required only a key to lock and unlock. There was no sight or smell of blood, either. The mattress was placed neatly on the frame. The cell had no signs of struggle. The hallway didn't, either: the footprints in the dust were those of people who had walked down the hall and back. No one had squared off for a fight .That was hopeful.

It also helped get her mind off the fact that she was in _his _former cell.

In fact, she though, staring at the bunk, she wasn't entirely sure that two people had been in this this cell at the same time at all. The bunk was too small to support two people. The footprints, too. Claire's footprints went to the sink. The other set didn't. In fact, the other set simply went to the bunk, where the other perp had sat down – two footprints side by side told her that. Then over to the table and chair. Then they headed straight out of the cell.

Moreover, Claire Hansen's footprints also left this cell. The width of stride suggested that Claire was walking at a normal pace. Not, in other words, being held by some psycho by the arm as he frogmarched her to a horrible death. Alive, and free and under her own power.

Clarice closed her eyes. Was she telling herself this because she wanted it to be true? Needed it to be true? No, she decided.

A vibration against her thigh made her jump, as if Dr. Lecter himself had grabbed her leg. Clarice jumped and scrabbled for her pistol, then realized the vibration was on her other side. A muted electronic burr came from her pocket. Shamefacedly, grinning at her own overreaction, Clarice pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and examined the glowing display in the darkness. Amazing that there was signal down here.

GREYHOUND CUST SVC, the display read.

Clarice put the phone in her left hand and casually dropped her right to the butt of her pistol. Better to stay in the cell, where nobody could sneak up on her. Brigham had taught her well.

"Starling," she said crisply.

"Agent Starling? This is Tanya, with Greyhound. You called earlier today and asked me to run a check on the name Claire Morrigan?"

"Yes," Clarice said tightly. "Do you have something for me?"

"I found another ticket purchase. Baltimore to Burlington, Vermont, with transfers at New York City and White River Junction. All of them are coming up used, so she made them all. She left late last night and arrived in Burlington at six o'clock this morning. They were booked over the Internet but paid in person at the Baltimore bus station."

"Did she--," Clarice swallowed. _Vermont? What the fuck would she want in Vermont? _Then she realized that question didn't matter. At least not yet. "Did she get _on _the bus? Can you tell if she was a no-show or not?"

The young woman on the other end of the line took several moments before replying. In those moments, Clarice's heart might have beat once. Or twice.

"Yes," Tanya said. "She made all her connections, and arrived in Burlington this morning, it looks like."

"Thank you so much, Tanya," Clarice said tightly, scrabbling for her memo pad. She had to put her gun back in its holster to do it, but she couldn't manipulate phone, light, gun, and notebook all at once.

She scribbled down a few notes, her mind racing far ahead of her hand. _Internet. Internet. You're on the run, how the hell did you get on the Internet? Wireless cafe? Nah, you don't have your own laptop. Library? Gotta be. _

_Wait. You don't know Baltimore, you've never been here before. You're just running off what you can find. You asked a security guard at the bus station for homeless shelters. That one bum told you about this place when you got kicked out. So what now? How are you gonna find a library? You're not gonna stop and ask anybody here, I don't think – those guys upstairs are gonna ring your alarm bells, for sure. _

_Either you got out of here and asked somebody...or maybe you saw one. Let's see. _

Clarice headed back up the stairs, pistol out but not aimed, and made it back to her car uneventfully. That was to be expected; most people didn't mess with you when you carried a .45. Once back at her car, she looked around. Even in the fading light she could see a public library a few blocks down the street.

_Bingo. _

She got in her car and headed down the street. Parking was close enough. The library would only be open for another twenty minutes or so, but that would be enough. She found the public computer room and scanned the list. There it was, Claire Morrigan. Twice. So Claire had left and then come back. What the hell for?

Clarice got the attention of the fellow in charge of the computers and showed him her identification. That served to squelch his complaints about the computer room's closing hours and get her sole access to the computer Claire had used. Hopefully it hadn't lost too much.

Clarice knew computers fairly well, and it wasn't particularly difficult to make this one cough up its secrets. In fact, the hard part was filtering out the stuff she wanted versus the noise – all the other people who had used this computer to check their email, their friends' MySpaces and Facebooks, and random google searching. It was crap to her; she only wanted to know what Claire had done on this machine.

After a while she had it. She stared at it with hard eyes, not liking what she had. The very first thing Claire had done was to do a Google search for "library on US-Canadian border". Further searches indicated that Claire intended to go to a podunk town in Vermont called Derby Line, which was right on the border. Clarice had heard of that town; after 9/11 they had some questions about border security there. There had been a few federal bulletins about it.

The problem was apparent. In Derby Line and the Quebec town across from it, someone walking across the border wouldn't attract any sort of interest, and might go unnoticed entirely by the border patrol. Which was not a good thing for her. How had Claire heard of it? That didn't really matter; the important thing was that she had.

The rest of Claire's web searching all served that goal. She had searched for bus transportation to Vermont, and discovered that the furthest she could get was to Burlington. After that, she had found a ride-share board and found a commuter student who had been offering rides to and from the University of Vermont to Derby Line. Claire had signed up for an email account, written him an email asking about a ride,

Apparently, she must have gotten herself a prepaid phone. The Bureau hated those; the bad guys could buy them, activate them, and use them, all without tying their name to it. They were huge pains in the ass to trace; you'd have to arrest someone, get him to cough up the number, and half the time the bad guys would just toss the phone and buy a new one, forcing you to start the whole process over again. Claire had activated that, given him her phone number, and apparently agreed to meet him at the university campus. Which, as it turned out, was only a mile and a half from the bus station. Joy.

That explained Burlington. But the main question remained. Why Quebec? Why Canada? Did she know someone there? Was there some link Clarice had missed?

One way to find out. Clarice pulled out her cell phone and dialed Sarah Hansen, apologizing for the lateness of the hour.

"Hello, Agent Starling," said her client.

"Hi, how are you?"

"Have you found something?"

"I believe I have, yes," Clarice said. "I'm curious. It seems Claire may be traveling to Quebec. Can you think of any reason why she would have gone there? Does she know anyone there? Any friends or extended family?"

The other woman did not speak immediately, leaving an uncomfortable silence of several seconds.

"Well," she said, as if the subject was distasteful, "our mother was from Quebec."

Shock and anger made Clarice gag. "What?" she spluttered. "Ms. Hansen, with all due respect, why didn't you tell me that first?"

There were a few moments before the prosecutor spoke, and when she did, the distaste in her voice was palpable. "Our mother left when we were very young," she said frostily. "I was eight. Claire was two or three. Frankly, I didn't even think Claire knew her at all. We haven't been on speaking terms for years. She had...a drinking problem. I don't know where she's living or even if she's still alive. She left us."

Clarice gritted her teeth, torn between annoyance and etiquette. On the one hand, she had no desire to stir up bad memories. On the other hand, they should have _fucking told her _that their mother was from Canada. Because if Mom was from Quebec, then Claire had somewhere to go and someone to turn to. And maybe Clarice could have found her and intercepted her and this whole thing could have been over yesterday. Instead, she was now about a thousand miles from her prey.

After a moment, she realized that it was worse than that. She didn't know much about Canadian immigration law, but it stood to reason that if their mother was from Canada, then Claire would be able to stay there, estranged or not. Citizenship, residency, whatever you called it – most Western countries didn't make a habit of booting out the kids of their citizens. Even if they tried to make her go back to the US and get her paperwork straight, she could fight it in court for at least a few years. God knew it took forever to deport illegal aliens in the US.

Sarah Hansen didn't have a few years. Sarah Hansen had less than a year.

If Clarice got the kid before she crossed the border, she had a lot of options open to her. She could bring the kid in on a material witness warrant. If she didn't like it, she could sue the FBI. People did that every day. More likely than not they would give her some money and she would go her merry way. Clarice might get a letter of censure.

Was she willing to pay that price? She had long been unfairly maligned by Krendler and his crew. She was working off those stains now. But did that matter? Not up against someone's _life, _it didn't. It would just mean another year in purgatory lugging corpses around the Academy. Was she willing to pay that price? Yes, she decided. She was.

If Claire made it, though, then a lot of things changed. Clarice would have no leverage. No arrest powers, no nothing. No ability to set things right. If the kid looked up Mom, then maybe Mom would make her do the right thing, but that was leaving things to chance, and there was no guarantee Claire would comply with such a request. Clarice didn't like the idea of leaving things to chance, not with a life on the line.

Clarice hurriedly surfed to a map website and got directions to Derby Line, Vermont. It was five hundred sixty miles, and the website advised her it would be only nine hours and twenty-two minutes. Maybe for civilians it would be. I-95 all the way to New York, then 91 all the way up.

_This is crazy, _part of her mind told her. _She got to Burlington this morning. You can't possibly get there in less than eight hours. _

_What's crazy is not trying, _she told that part of her mind. _What's crazy is letting the kid sashay across the border while I sit here with my thumb up my ass. If I go now I can there in eight and a half hours, maybe. Six o'clock now. The internet stuff said she'd be walking from Derby Line to Magog. That's twenty miles – hell of a long walk. She'll be walking __all night. I could catch up with her. By now she's probably low on money, cold, and hungry. Offer her a ride, a meal, then __get her back across the border and we'll...we'll get all this straightened out. _

It was possible that she was just fooling herself. For all she knew, Claire might have a ride arranged, or might hitchhike. But she hadn't hitchhiked so far, even when it would have been easier. She seemed to know that hitchhiking was about the stupidest thing a young woman on her own could do. And ultimately, Clarice had to do _something. _She hadn't rescued Catherine Martin by sitting on her butt. She'd put in the effort, and she'd been rewarded with a little bit of luck, she had prevailed, and Catherine Martin had lived.

She got up from the computer, strode outside to her car, and revved the engine. She was willing to put in the effort again. If only she could get that little bit of luck.

Ten minutes later, the Mustang was on I-95, gathering speed as it arced north. Clarice gritted her teeth. _I will prevail, dammit. I will prevail. _

...

The Haskell Library and Opera House was built in 1904, by American sawmill magnate Carlos Haskell and his Canadian wife Martha Stewart Haskell. It was a neoclassical building, charming, with a large tower. It has been referred to as the only library in America with no books and the only opera in America with no stage. This is because the building deliberately straddles the US-Canadian border. The front door through which Claire entered was in Derby Line, Vermont. The majority of the books, and the stage of the opera house on the second floor, was in Quebec.

Claire had seen this library once as a small girl, when they'd gone to visit family in Quebec. She'd remembered it vaguely; remembered that there was a line on the floor indicating the border. They'd taken a picture of the family all standing with one foot in Canada and one in the United States. Upon her release, she hadn't remembered the name, but the Internet had served to refresh her memory.

Her family would be looking for ways to screw with her, somehow. In the United States, she had little ability to stop them from targeting her. They could issue warrants or whatever they wanted, and no court in the United States would ever stop them. _He _was a judge, and _she _was a prosecutor, and the other _he _was a cop. They could do whatever they wanted. Nobody would ever call a halt to it.

Here, though, it would be different. Extraditing people from another country took more work. The federal government had to get involved. At least she thought so. Either way, it would take more work and she would have a chance at a fair hearing. Besides, some guys from the Army had fled to Canada rather than fight in the war, and nobody had extradited them yet. So, Claire reasoned, if she could get in here, she might be able to stay here too.

Starting over in a foreign country was frightening, but the facts were simple. In the US, _they _could make her life a living hell and no one would ever make them stop. Here, she might have a chance to live free of them and their machinations. But she had to get across that line first.

She had no identification, so crossing the border at an inspection station was out. Too much risk. You needed ID at a minimum. Her fake ID from the head shop was fine for buying bus tickets, but showing it to an actual police officer or border guard was just asking for it. Once she got settled she'd figure something out.

She could see cameras mounted outside on telephone poles, but she was going to try anyway. If it didn't work it didn't work. But trying was a lot better than just sitting back on your ass and bemoaning your fate. She had seen a few US border patrol officers around. Small wonder, after 9/11. But what about the other way? They didn't seem to be as strict about that. It looked like this was going to be as simple as walking across the lawn.

Claire entered the library and looked around. It was a pleasant, bright, and airy place. The woman at the reception desk smiled at her calmly. She supposed she looked travel-worn, but they wouldn't think she was an ex-con on the run.

"Good afternoon," said the woman.

"Good afternoon," Claire said, and looked around, letting a slow smile come over her face. "I came here once as a kid. Wanted to see it again."

"Of course," the woman said. "Are you from around here?"

_With this drawl? _"No, I'm from further south," Claire replied, knowing that around here that could mean pretty much the entire US. "I have family in Quebec."

"A lot of people here do," the woman replied. "Well, feel free to look around. The library closes at eight today."

Claire proceeded into the library and found herself a soft, pleasant chair that had two things she needed: a nearby electrical outlet and a window. She dug the phone and charger out of her purse and plugged it in. If they yelled at her she'd unplug it, but hardly anyone was here and maybe they wouldn't care. She grabbed a book and sat down, but she was more interested in her surroundings.

She couldn't see a rear entrance that she could get to easily. That would have been easiest: walk in one door in Vermont, walk out another and be in Quebec. Seemed it wouldn't be that easy. Trying to sneak out a service entrance was too likely to cause trouble.

She could see out the window where there was only a white line marked CANADA on one side and U.S.A on the other. According to the research she had done on the Internet, there were motion sensors and cameras. All the same, she had seen a few people park in Canada, come into the library, and walk back across. Nobody seemed to bother them. The enforcement seemed to be mostly one way. It wasn't far from the front door to the border. It seemed about twenty feet. Probably, in a small town like this, they'd be looking at cars, not people. Really, all she had to do was walk across the lawn like she had every right to be there.

The black dress had been part of that. It would help her blend in in the dark, but it would also look a little more formal, a little dressier, and would look a little more like she was just on her way back home. Her own looks were part of it – her dark hair and fair complexion had come from her mother. Unfortunately, the only French she knew was from high school, and she couldn't make heads or tails out of the occasional French she heard in the library.

When her phone finished charging, it was almost closing time.. That was okay. She had some stuff to move around, though. She picked up her backpack and rummaged around in it, looking up to see if anyone was paying attention. No one seemed interested. Why would they be, she reminded herself. Presumably they had seen a girl rearrange her crap before.

She emptied out the backpack and examined the contents therein. There was a large black purse, bought cheap in Baltimore, the kind that would fall apart quickly. Normally she didn't like those huge hold-everything purses, but for now her likes and dislikes didn't matter. The idea of the purse was the same as the dress – to look a little dressier. They would definitely bother her if she looked like a dirty vagabond; maybe they would go a little easier on someone nicely dressed.. The backpack could fit in the purse; it was cheap and thin and could scrunch up. The bag containing her dirty clothes took the most effort; she had to take them out, roll them up tight, and cram them in. Her printouts from the library; these were probably the most valuable thing she had right now. There was a French phrase book she'd gotten in Baltimore, two candy bars, her soap, shampoo, towel, and her phone. She wondered if she ought to toss it, since it still had a Baltimore number, but she was loath to get rid of it. It might still work across the border if she needed it, and it was one of the first things she'd gotten when free. It would make a good souvenir. Besides, it was also her only way to tell time. Once the stuff was packed, Claire decided it was time. She didn't want to hang out until eight. She had a long way to go yet. So she shouldered her purse and headed for the door. It felt somewhat odd to carry a purse again; she hadn't had once since....well, since before all the bad times started. It had a shoulder strap, which she liked better, and it would do the job.

Outside, white flakes were gently falling, gently veiling the blackness outside. She stared uneasily at the snow skirling out of the sky. How much could there be? Was it going to stay this cold?

No point in worrying about it now.

Her heart was pounding as she left the library and sallied forth across the street. The blank eye of the camera stared down. Claire raised her chin, gathered her courage, and began to walk across the street. Should she walk slow and act like she had every right to be there? Or should she hurry, the way somebody would if they were freezing their ass off – which she was – and just cross?

Gathering her courage, she sallied forth across the street. No floodlights came on. No guard dogs were let loose or sirens wailed. In fact, nothing at all happened. She walked across the street and across the border. The white line was now south of her. She was safe.

She repressed a brief but very strong urge to turn around and stick out her tongue at the land and tormentors now south of her: _na-na-na-na-na-na! _Instead, she simply kept going, raised her chin, and proceeded up the street.

_I did it, _she thought dazedly. _I really, really did it. I'm here. I'm safe now. Now I can get on with the rest of my life. _

Despite the cold and the fact that she had hardly any money, the thought made her giddy as she walked up the street. She was safe. She had a line of protection now. A voice interrupted her reverie.

"Hey!"

Claire felt fear slime her throat. She looked around. Just across the street, a little south of her, was a lighted kiosk. In it was a figure next to an open window, and he was pointing at her and waving her over. She froze.

_That's not fair! _She thought. _I made it! I really did! _

The idea of running occurred to her. But where could she run to? Back across the border? For what? Then they would surely sic the cops on her, and that would be the end of it. Should she plead ignorance? Should she ask for asylum? Would that work?

There was only one thing to do for right now, so she did it: she trudged unwillingly over to the customs booth. The guy behind the window watched her closely for a few moments. He didn't seem angry or hostile, not at first.

"You crossed the border, ma'am. You have to check in at customs when you do that."

Claire swallowed. "I'm sorry," she said. Let him think she was a dumbass; better to be thought a dumbass than a criminal. "I just...wanted to go up to the pizza place while I wait on my mom."

"Are you waiting on your mom in Canada, or in the States?"

Claire shifted from foot to foot. Tears rose to her eyes. Close...so close. And now stopped at the last. "Canada. Well, wait. I'm American. My mom is from Quebec. And she was supposed to come down here and meet me here and she's late. And the library closed, and I forgot my coat, and I'm sorry, but I'm just freezing cold and I just wanted to go up to the pizza place and get something to eat while I waited." Her breath plumed in the air.

"Your mom's from Quebec?" the guard asked, picking out the one part he wanted from her story deftly.

"Yes, sir," she said, and almost kicked herself. Yankees didn't say sir. Well, maybe they did to border patrol officers. It certainly seemed like a good idea.

"But you're an American citizen?"

"I was born in the US," Claire said completely truthfully. "I think my mom registered me when I was little. She's got all my paperwork."

The border agent nodded, as if he heard similar stories every day. "How long do you plan to be here?"

"Just a couple of days, maybe a week," Claire said cautiously. "You know, just to see family."

"Do you have any ID?"

Claire shivered, reached into her purse, feeling like she'd just been sentenced again. She took out the fake ID. Now this was it. Now he would look at it, sneer at her, and pick up the phone. _You think I was born yesterday? Come inside, please. I'm gonna call the cops. _

Maybe she could break away and flee back across the border. Maybe she should have walked out of town, and tried to cross in the country. Yammering panic chewed at her and she felt her heart begin to pound. No place to run, no place to flee...

The border patrol officer simply glanced at her fake ID with only the most desultory interest. The bill of his cap dipped in a slow nod. "Do you have anything on you that you're going to leave in Canada?"

_My bones, _Claire thought. _Cause if you let me in I am never, never going back. _"No," she said.

"Where does your mom live?"

"Sherbrooke," Claire responded. Well, her mother had grown up there. "She's driving down, and she's late."

The man nodded and flapped his hand. "You're gonna need a passport to get back into the US pretty soon. They're tightening up." he said. "But heck, it's too cold to let you freeze out here. Pizza place you're looking for is a few blocks up. Why don't you go there, and stay out of the cold. Hope your mom gets here soon. You come back and show me your paperwork once she gets here." Then he slid the window closed and shivered himself.

Claire stood for a few more seconds until she realized what he meant. She smiled at him, her heart pounding away in her chest. "Thank you, sir. Thank you very much," she said, and turned north again. Should she go to the pizza place? It had to be closing soon, and she had very little money. But he didn't need to know that, and it would be worth stopping off if it threw him off her trail. And she had to, now.

She walked up a few blocks, hunched over as she walked through the town, her arms wrapped protectively around her. She ought to be delighted, she thought. She was safe. She was going to be okay after all.

But she wasn't. Despite having made it past the customs people, she could not get herself calmed down. Different visions kept blinking into her mind's eye: people in uniforms all too similar to the border people. People with guns and handcuffs on their belts, dragging her, taking her to a filthy jail.

She closed her eyes. _Not happening. It's not real. You made it. You're across the border. _

Her conscious mind knew the fact, but the lizard part of her brain kept screaming and jittering in fear, kept screaming _Danger! Danger! Danger! _Her body responded, dumping adrenalin into her system. Her pulse drummed monotonously in her ears and her hands twitched. She felt a scream trying to lever its way out of her throat, almost like a living thing, and stopped to disguise it as a coughing fit.

_Not now, _she thought. _Not now, not now, not now. Once I'm out in the country I can scream all I want, I can take out the blade if I want, but not...goddam...here. I didn't cross a thousand miles to freak out two blocks over the border. There are still cops around here, not totally safe turf around here, I'm not out of the woods yet. _

She closed her eyes, hoping to stop the flood: leering guards, larger inmates, the horrible moldy reek of the jail, the sterile, unmoving, buried-alive feeling of prison. The despair, the helpless rage, and the pain she had intended to escape.

There was only one thing to do, so Claire did it. She bit down hard on the inside of her lip and forced herself to look around. She spotted the pizzeria the border patrol guy

(_don't think that make it go away no uniforms dammit pizza you need pizza) _

had suggested. There it was. It wasn't much; just a small area in front with a few tables. Behind the register was an older man with dark hair much like her own and a thick mustache.

_"Bon jour," _he said politely.

Fighting back the panic attack had taken up too much effort for her to reach into her limited French repertoire to even consider using it. She smiled tightly.

"Good evening," she said, and she could tell how tight and ragged her voice was "I'm sorry. Can you speak English?"

"Sure can," he responded.

"Do you have a bathroom?"

"Those are for customers, ma'am," he said smoothly.

For a long moment Claire wanted to scream, or perhaps jump over the counter and throttle him until his eyes popped out. Then she thought. Some food would do her good, a little time would pass, and it would get darker.

"Can you take American money?" she asked.

He nodded.

"One plain slice...and a small diet coke," she recited. In her purse was a lone, tattered five surrounded by a few singles. She gave him the five and he handed her back a few coins. He cut a slice from a metal tray on the counter, put it on a smaller metal plate, and slid it into the oven with the skill of long practice. The slamming of the oven's door made her jump.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Claire smiled tiredly and nodded. "It's been a hell of a night," she demurred.

She took the paper cup he gave her, went over to one of the small tables, and sat down for a moment, long enough to put down a napkin and her drink to assert her claim over the tiny space. Then she got up and went to the bathroom.

The bathroom was nothing fancy – a single toilet, sink, and mirror, clean but dingy. It would be all right. Claire locked the door and opened her purse. From it she took the pair of scissors she had taken from the asylum in Baltimore. They were old, and she hadn't intended to use them for this purpose, but it was the only way she knew of making the ugly images go away.

Carefully, she washed the scissors in the sink, generous with the soap, and dried them with paper towels. Next, she rolled up her left sleeve and turned her arm palm up, washing that. She opened the scissors, staring at the sharp point for a few seconds, then studied the faded scars on her forearm and paused for a moment. She had to do this calmly.

She drove one blade of the scissors into the meat of her arm down low, by the elbow, and off center, where it would avoid the larger blood vessels. It did not enter too deeply, only a fraction of an inch, but the pain was immediate. It had been a while. Drawing it up a few inches – just a few – made it hurt more.

But it had the desired effect. As the physical pain bolted up her arm, it crowded out the panicky jittery feeling and the flood of memories receded. It hurt. It hurt plenty, and she was nervous about infection,, but she could cope with this much better. Carefully she put the scissors back in her purse and began to pat the wound with paper towels.

It bled, but not badly, and she went back to the table feeling more in control of herself. Her slice was ready, and she ate it greedily. It was good, hot and greasy, and she devoured it. The soda was good and thirst-quenching, and she could finally think. Her arm ached, but she didn't feel like she was simply going to lapse into insanity at any momemt.

She fumbled her printouts out of her purse. She had done her homework. Now that she had gotten across the border, she had to make her way to Magog. Fortunately, Google Maps had told her what she needed to know. It was twenty-two miles to the hospital in Magog. There had been a few listings; one was something called a _hospitalier hebergement, _one was called a c_entre de santé et de services sociaux. _Claire didn't have the faintest idea what a _hospitalier hebergement _might be, but it had come up when she searched for Magog hospitals.

The plan was simple. Twenty-two miles was a walkable distance, when you came down to it. It wouldn't be fun, but it was possible. With twelve dollars left in her pocket, it was also her only choice. She would need to get to the hospital. Hospitals had emergency rooms, and anybody could walk into an emergency room. Hopefully, on a night like tonight, they wouldn't turn her away even if they pegged her as homeless. All she needed was a place to sleep. The chairs would be fine; it wasn't like she had much worth stealing, anyways. Even if she couldn't sleep the

re, she could at least hang out until the morning.

In the morning, she would call her lawyer back in Richmond. There was plenty of time left on her phone. He had her birth certificate, and all she needed was a mailing address where he could send it. If he sent it to her, the rest would fall into place, eventually. The birth certificate had her mother's place of birth clear as day: Sherbrooke, Quebec. That ought to be good enough to get things started. Maybe those _services sociaux _people could give her a little _services. _

After that? Well, she'd have to get her paperwork squared away. She would change her name, learn to speak French, and go to school. High school first, to get a real high school diploma. Then college. She wanted that badly; she wanted to have it to rub in their faces. Well, no, if things worked out they wouldn't know where she was at all, but she would know, and that would be enough. Then, get a job, move to the city, get an apartment, meet a guy, get married, have some kids, and buy a house in the suburbs. Retire at some point, travel, and hopefully live long enough to be the nice old lady who had twenty cats and said hi to the neighborhood kids, none of whom would ever know about her stained past.

Not a bad plan, but in order to get to be that old cat lady, she had to get the hell out of Stanstead and keep moving. That meant she'd be walking all night, but it was her only choice. She looked out the dirty plate-glass window and scowled at the falling snow. Who the hell would have thought there would be this much snow?

She should have stolen a coat at the University after all. Now there was nothing to do but suck it up. The only other clothes she had were filthy dirty, but she might have to put them on anyway. The idea of that bothered her. She liked things neat and clean, and putting on those clothes she'd worn for a few days, especially on that bus...ick. Quebec was colder than Virginia, but she'd never imagined it would be _this _cold. Neither choice was great: dirty or cold. Well, once she was out of town she could duck behind a tree or something

Claire picked herself up, threw away her trash, and walked out the door. It took her a moment to re-orient herself, but she managed. The cold air bit her as she left the warm confines of the pizzeria, and she shivered. She turned north and began reviewing her route in her head. _The only way forward is through, _she thought. She'd heard it on a war movie somewhere. It seemed to fit. There was no opposing army out there – _or was there? –_but there were plenty of obstacles: the cold night, the long distance, a different country, no money, no friends, she didn't speak the language, but she had gotten this far. She would prevail.


	8. Out in the Cold

_Author's note: Thanks to Screaming Lamb for translation services below. Reviews are always appreciated. _

_Welcome to Vermont, _the sign had said, but it was ten miles behind, blown out the tailpipe like so many before it. Clarice hunched over the steering wheel, fueled by gas-station coffee and her own iron determination. Fast-food and donut-shop wrappers littered her passenger seat. She felt dirty and sweaty, and her back hurt after so many hours behind the wheel. No matter.

There was part of her that still thought she was a damn fool; driving all night when she knew perfectly well that her prey had a large head start. She had some advantages of her own. She had a car and an FBI badge. She'd only gotten stopped once in New Jersey. She'd been polite, told him she'd worked Newark before, and had asked for courtesy. The trooper had handed her back her license and wished her godspeed. After that, she'd continued on her journey north. The Mustang could make tracks, all right, and she took full advantage of it.

As the white lines flashed by and the streetlights looked blindly down on her, she reached forward to swig from a paper cup of gas-station coffee. It was bitter, but it would keep her going. This was it, the dark where you give it or you don't. Whether it was Buffalo Bill's basement, a tenement in Newark, or the miles slipping by, this was it. She would do as she had done before, as she had been born to do: she would track down her target. Sarah Hansen would live. The lambs would be safe. She could feel energy surge through her, as much from the scent and the chase as the coffee.

The soft burr of her cell phone cut through the roar of the cabin. Clarice glanced over at her purse, checked her rearview, and dug the phone out. Ardelia's number scrolled across the screen. Clarice's mouth tightened and she answered the phone.

"Hi," she said in a short, clipped tone.

"Hi, Clarice. Where are you? It's late."

Clarice scowled for a moment, knowing this wasn't going to go well. All the same, it was done. She couldn't turn back.

"Vermont," she said.

A crackle of static. "What?" Ardelia asked dazedly.

"Vermont. You know, with the maple syrup and Howard Dean and hippies," Clarice said neutrally. "Over by Maine and New York?"

There were a few moments of confused silence before her roommate replied. "I know what it is," she said irritably. "What the hell are you doing there?"

"Claire Hansen is making a run for Canada," Clarice said. "Tonight. I gotta stop her, Ardelia. I got to get her now."

"What? That's crazy. Have you lost your goddam mind?"

"Crazy is sitting around waiting for her to turn up," Clarice insisted. "Once she gets across the border we'll never get her back."

"Clarice, dammit, you have _work _in the morning."

Clarice clenched her jaw and stuck out her chin obstinately, even though Ardelia was not here to see it. "I'll blow in sick."

"For how long?" Ardelia said. "Dammit, girl, I know you want to get out in the field again, but this is _not _the way to do it."

"Don't lecture me, 'Delia," Clarice said. "Come on. A _life _is at stake."

"Okay. What are you going to do if you find her? Stuff her in your trunk?"

"I got to find her first," Clarice said, feeling oddly triumphant.

"I know you. You'll try something like arresting her on a material witness warrant--,"

_Which is what I was thinking of, _Clarice thought. Yes, Ardelia knew her.

"--and unless you've got something to stick, a federal judge will take one look at it, and laugh his ass off while he signs the papers for her release, she'll sue the FBI and you, and then what?"

Clarice gritted her teeth. Ardelia, queen of always thinking things through, wise counsel, using your head. Sometimes you just had to move, that was all. Sometimes you just had to do the right thing. Why couldn't she see that?

"Then, more likely than not, the FBI will settle her suit, give her some money so she'll shut up and go away. Happens _all _the time."

"What happens to you?" Ardelia asked. "Clarice, I'm your friend. I'm worried about you. Maybe they'd just give you a letter of censure. Maybe not, though. If they want to hang you for this, they can. This kind of going off half-cocked, loose cannon crap – if they decide it's enough, you could end up sailed off the back steps like a dead chick."

"It won't," Clarice said. "Not if it saves a life. For God's sake, Ardelia...we've been through this. If I don't find this girl, her sister is going to die. Simple as that. Not get arrested, not get sued, not even get sent to prison. Die. D-I-E. Dead. If she gets across the border—,"

"If she gets across the border it should be very easy to get Canadian immigration to kick her back," Ardelia said.

"No, they won't," Clarice insisted. "For one thing, those guys who deserted from the Army are still up there and are gonna be up there for years. All she has to do is say 'asylum' and pow, she's good for years."

"That's not the same."

Clarice pressed on. "Also, turns out the Hansens forgot to tell me that her mom was Canadian, so that means she can stay there. Permanently."

"Then have her do what she needs to do up there. It's not your business."

Clarice gritted her teeth. How could she make Ardelia understand? She _hard _to find Claire Hansen, and she _had _to stop her before she made it across the border. If she got across the border, she could do what criminals always did: delay, drag things out, demand money...the list went on and on. You didn't let them get more cards in their hand if you could possibly help it.

"It is now," she said. "My job was to find her. And she has to do this now. Here. It can't wait. I have to make it right. After that she can do whatever she wants."

"Clarice, you're being silly. Think this through."

"I have," Clarice insisted. "Dammit, I am trying to save a life here."

"At the possible cost of your career," Ardelia said with schoolmarmish disapproval.

Clarice felt control sliding away from her. "I won't lose my career," she said stubbornly. "You think the FBI is going to fire me over a convicted murderer? Look, all I'm gonna do is find her and make her do the right thing. Then she can go do whatever she wants. She can go up to Canada if she wants. But _first _things have to be set right. That's all. That's what we do."

A few seconds of disapproving silence followed. "I think you're making a big mistake," Ardelia said in that patented tone she had that always made Clarice feel about seven years old.

"I'll be back tomorrow, 'Delia. This will all be okay," Clarice coaxed.

"I hope so," Ardelia said archly. "I certainly hope so."

"I will. I just gotta find this girl before she does something stupid."

"Of course," Ardelia said frostily, effortlessly making the words impart the meaning _You're being a moron_.

"I'll see you tomorrow. Promise," Clarice said.

"All right," Ardelia said. "I'll see you then."

Clarice waited a second more before putting the phone down, feeling misunderstood and sulky. She tried to dismiss that. Ardelia was just worried, she told herself. That was all. Tonight she would find the kid, bring her back, and everything would be okay. If there was a price to pay it couldn't be _that _high, not over a criminal.

She drove on for a few more miles, feeling dirty and determined, enjoying the metallic energy that thrummed her body. She had the scent. This was all gonna be fine. Then the Mustang, her faithful steed for several hundred miles, began to shudder. She could feel the wheel shake and heard a horrible _bum-rum-rum-rum _from the passenger side. Then a large segment of rubber sheered off her tire and blew away.

She did not panic. She laid off the gas, shifted into neutral, and stayed off her brakes until she had slowed down. Then she laid them on very lightly. The Mustang obediently slowed to a stop instead of flipping or losing control. Once it had stopped she got out of the car and surveyed the damage in the beam of her big Mag-Lite.

The tire was a total loss. The rubber had stripped away to reveal the steel mesh of the belts. Clarice kicked the tire and looked up at the sky, emitting a string of invective that would have gotten her mouth washed out with soap back in the Lutheran Home. She kicked the tire in anger and then paused. Cussing wouldn't help, and kicking wouldn't help. There was only one thing to do, and that was fix things. It would hold her up, and she found that delay intolerable. Not when she was so damn close!

She had a lot of junk in her trunk, but the jack and tire iron and spare was there – a full-size spare, none of that donut crap, not on a high-performance car like hers. She took care of details like that. As she pulled out the jack, she shivered. Man, it was cold.

* * *

Claire shambled along, whimpering as the wind and cold cut her. It was cold. That was the only thing she could still remember. Cold, cold, cold. The wind bit through her inadequate clothing. Her feet and ankles were wet with snow and she could barely feel them anymore. She had to get to Magog; she could remember that. But it was getting harder to remember what Magog was and what was there that she would need. She had to make herself remember. All she knew was that she was icy cold, the wind was sharp, and the air cut her lungs when she tried to breathe.

She trudged forward, aware only of the dark, cold night and the white snow. How long had it been? How far was it? The world seemed to have narrowed to dark night, snow skirling relentlessly out of the sky like the manna of a cruel god, this dark road, and bitingly cold air. Her chest hurt and her hands were numb. She stared dumbly at them as she trudged, noticing that they had suddenly turned into white, sodden lumps. It took several more minutes before she remembered having stopped to put on the other clothes she had and making her dirty socks do duty for gloves. The T-shirt was pulled onto her head to offer what scant protection it could, her eyes peering through the neckhole.

That had bothered her. It didn't anymore. Nothing as petty as dirty clothes could compare to this cold. It was like being beaten all over your body at once by a giant armed with a club of ice.

She had to keep going. How far had she gone? She didn't know. She had been walking for hours, at least. It was pitch black and there was hardly any car traffic, so it had to be late. The signs were in kilometers, which didn't mean anything to her, and the last one had been...fifteen minutes? Twenty? An hour? It hardly mattered. How long had she been walking? She couldn't remember that either. If only her chest didn't hurt so much, maybe she could think.

She stumbled a few more steps and bent over, hacking up a cough. Nausea swirled her head for a moment and she pulled the socks off her hands and the T-shirt off her head. She spat on the ground, taking some dizzy, unfocused glee in doing something that she wasn't supposed to do, and found more glee in the fact that the snow vanished in small indentations where she spat. So she did it again. _How do you like them apples, snow? How does that grab you? _

She kicked at it, aware that she couldn't do anything about it when it was falling on her head, but once it was on the ground she could work her will on it. She could trample on it. Or pull down her pants and tights and _piss_ on it, if so she chose. See how it would like that. See how _they _would like that. See where all that _our family has a history, Claire, and we expect you to act like it _got them. And all of that proud family history went right down the drain once her stepbitch went down the the stairs, didn't it? She ought to pee on the snow, just to show them. But that would mean too much rigmarole with clothes – more than she could manage right now.

_Damn, you're far gone, _she thought, and laughed. Far gone? She still had so far to go. Too far to make it, she thought blackly. This miserable world of cold and dark and pain was all she would ever have.

"You betcha," Claire croaked to the dark and the snow. "I'm screwed." She trudged along, barely noticing the headlights of a car which drove past her without stopping, its inhabitants safe and warm and a world away from her. She stopped and leaned against a tree to cough again. It seemed to rack her frame, hurting a lot more than coughing ever should. Before, she had seen visible mist coming from her mouth when she breathed, but not any more. That was probably bad. She supposed she should be worried about that, but she wasn't; she just observed the phenomenon with detached interest.

"Mercy, I do believe I _don't_ have the vapors," Claire drawled, and let out a weak, maniacal fit of giggles. She let go of the tree to continue on her miserably unhappy journey and stumbled. The world whirled and spun and now up was sideways. Now the snow was all over her, on her face, and she brushed it off with distaste. She struggled up to her feet again, lurched a few steps, and fell down again.

She was tired and miserable. Mostly tired. She didn't want to do this any more. _Just a quick rest, _she thought. _Just a little rest..._

_

* * *

  
_

The Surete du Quebec officer was comfortable and warm in his cruiser. Tonight was a cold night, and it would be a quiet night, hopefully. The cold would keep most of the local hoorawers inside. Mostly, he thought, he would find somewhere to set up radar and handle tickets. Someone would have to be going pretty fast to be worth getting out of the car, though. It was just too cold.

His radio buzzed.

_"__Numéro vingt-trois, nous avons un rapport de quelqu'un qui a perdu connaissance - ou peux etre c'est un mort - sur la Rue de Tomifobia. Un-demi kilometre nord du Chemin de Stanstead."_

_Tabarnak, _the officer thought. "_Un accident d'auto?__" _he asked.

_"__Non. quelqu'un a tombé au bord du chemin. Un automobiliste a appelé 911."_

"_Numéro vingt-trois en route,__" _he said. This cold snap had come on quickly, and the news had said it was the coldest October in southern Quebec in twenty years. If someone had collapsed by the side of the road in this weather, they would go from unconscious to body very quickly. A drunk? Drugs? It seemed likely, but he'd know when he got there. He wasn't far, and he pulled out onto the street and headed on his way quickly. The big engine growled as he drove through the night. There wasn't much traffic this late at night, and thankfully the snowplows had been on the ball. The roads were clear.

He'd driven around these parts to know without checking the odometer where half a klick north of Chemin de Stanstead was. The night was pitch black, except for the occasional streetlight, but the ground was covered with snow. Using the spotlight mounted on the side of his cruiser made finding his call a simple matter. She was a meter or so in from the road, lying down in the snow, a blotch of black against the white. He pulled over to the side of the road, put on his lights, and got out of the car. His gear jingled on his belt as he jogged over to her. As he got closer, he saw it was a woman. Tiny little thing, too. The first thought that crossed his mind was that she was almost assuredly dead. Then he saw her legs shake and tremble uselessly.

She was alive.

_"Madame, peut-tu m'entendre? Sureté du Québec. Attends."_

He jogged over to her, clumsy in the ankle-deep snow, and squatted beside her. She was icy cold to the touch. Her eyes did not open. She did not move. But he'd seen her legs move, and that was enough for now. He'd seen death before; this one might live.

"_Maudit," _he thought, and fumbled for his walkie-talkie._ "Base, ici numéro vingt-trois . Je suis sur la scène. J'ai __besoin d'une ambulance a la scène toute suite. Une femme, perdu connaissance mais envie. Elle gèle du froid . Aucun autre sur la scène."_

The dispatcher's voice was calm. "_On vas envoyé une ambulance."_

He looked around. Had she been attacked and dumped? There was no blood, not in the snow. Just footprints reaching back as far as he could see. He couldn't see any visible sign of injury, either. He also saw that she wasn't wearing a coat. What the hell was she doing out in this weather without a coat? He squatted down beside her, stripped off his own, and wrapped it around her as best he could. He could feel bitingly cold snow on his pants, wetting his legs. Should he try to get her to the car, where it would be warmer? She might have other injuries.

___"Madame, peut-tu m'entendre? On v'as t'envoyé une ambulance. Attends un p'tit peu.__"_ he spoke to her ear. He grabbed her hands and was momentarily revolted at how cold they were. People had recovered from that, he knew, but it was very hard to shake the idea that he was holding a corpse in his arms.

He held the girl for a few minutes that seemed to last an eternity. Where the hell was that ambulance?

It was hard to decide what to do: part of him thought he should look for clues, signs, anything that might tell him why this young woman was collapsed by the side of the road without a coat in the coldest winter they'd had in years. Another part of him thought that if he put her down, she would die.

He looked up and saw a white van pull over. Was that his ambulance? No, it didn't have the roof lights and was coming from the wrong direction. A civilian, most likely.

_"Monsieur!"_ he bawled. "_C'est un affaire de police. S'il te plait, rester en arrière."_

The figure did not obey. Instead, it stepped from the van and walked forward so that he was silhouetted in the headlights. He wore a long coat and a fedora.

_"__C'est un affaire de police. Une ambulance arrivera. Reste dans ta voiture, monsieur." _

"_Je suis un docteur. Laissez-moi aider. "_

The accent was the first thing he noticed. It was Parisian French, quite distinct from his own. He squinted at the van the man had stepped out of, trying to see the plates. He didn't think they were Quebec or Vermont, but it was hard to tell. Before he could answer, his walkie-talkie buzzed. _"__Numéro vingt-trois, ici base. l'ambulance arrivera en six minutes._"

The figure hesitated for a moment, then approached him. ""_Je suis un docteur. Je veux seulement aider," _it repeated. "_Que s'est arrivé? Est elle consciente?"_

_"Non." _As the doctor grew nearer, the officer could see he was a small, sleek man wearing an expensive topcoat against the cold. He seemed to be exactly what he said he was: a doctor interested in helping. But why would a doctor drive a ratty old van like that? Something about the accent bothered him too. It didn't sound like an American who had learned French. He didn't like it.

The figure came over to him, and he was suddenly very tense. The figure did not squat beside him as he might have expected. Instead, he stood a moment more. The officer heard a firm _click, _saw the flash of the blade, and tried to shift the girl in his arms to get his gun, mindful of his double training to both control the situation and protect the innocent, but it was too late.

"_Attends, laisse-moi voir."_ the figure said, and grabbed his chin, fingers sinking into his cheeks with an unbreakable grip. The blade flashed in the faint light, and a line of pain and heat was born on his throat. The officer dropped the girl and tried to stagger away, tried to get his feet under him, fingers fumbling for his gun, blood pattering down the side of his neck and soaking his uniform shirt.

_"__Je suis prêt quand tu es, dirigeant."_the figure said, darting over to follow him with malignant speed. A hand settled around his wrist with the strength of an iron shackle, pulling his hand away from his holstered pistol. The knife came down again. And again. And again.

Then there was nothing but the icy cold night.


	9. Blood and Light

_Author's note: Here's another chapter. Enjoy! As for the French of the previous chapter, you'll see..._

Dr. Lecter surveyed the scene around him. The policeman was dead, and Dr. Lecter could safely ignore him. Was his prey? It was hard to tell in the dark. He bent down and slid his arms under her. She was cold and limp, but that did not mean she was dead. Red lights were approaching. Another police car? No, an ambulance. The shape gave it away. He picked up the policeman's hat from where it had fallen and the coat from where the unfortunate officer had tried to wrap it around her.

He trotted through the snow back to his van, shifting the weight in his arm to open the rear door. Bounding inside, he turned his attention to a small cot he had bolted to the floor. Straps were handy to secure her to the cot, lest she roll around while he drove. He put his own topcoat atop her and wiped the blade of his knife on a towel he kept for such a purpose. Then he put on the coat and hat. Both were too big for him, but in this low light it would go unnoticed.

He got out of the van and trotted up to the ambulance as it pulled up. The driver obligingly rolled down his window as he expertly rolled to a stop.

"_Bonjour," _the driver said.

"_Bonjour," _Dr. Lecter repeated, and slashed with his knife. It was barely a flick of the wrist, but it was enough. The Harpy was wickedly sharp. Blood sprayed pagan symbols over the dashboard and radio. Dr. Lecter waited only a moment to ensure the driver wouldn't be able to call for help, then ran around to the back of the ambulance. The attendants were helpfully opening the doors.

The coat and hat provided him just enough cover. He moved quickly; there was no time to waste. The first attendant fell within moments. The second provided him with a bit more of a fight, since the gurney was between them, but he lasted only two more minutes than his cohort.

Normally he would have enjoyed the opportunity to raid the ambulance for supplies, but he had very little time. Soon enough they would send others. Besides, the van held plenty of standard medical supplies, the sort of things he could easily get himself. The radio chattered at him in metallic voices. Dr. Lecter ignored it. Should he take the gurney? No, not enough room in the van for it. There was an automatic defibrillator, which Dr. Lecter had heard of but had never had the chance to try. He grabbed that. It was heavy, but he could manage. He also took a large paramedic bag that was conveniently near the rear doors.

He ran back to the van, put his things in the back, and slid into the driver's seat. Should he try and attach the light bar, to pass as another ambulance? No, he decided. He was pleasantly exhilarated, enjoying the sensation of his racing pulse. Then he put the van into drive and pulled away.

It did not take much time to reach Magog, a small city much like many other small cities across the continent. Dr. Lecter pulled into the parking lot of a small hotel that had a good view of the lake and suites that were acceptably appointed, if not top notch. He had taken the opportunity to go on ahead of her and check in while she blundered through the snow. Perhaps he shouldn't have. Well, there was nothing to be done for it now, and now at least he had a place to keep her other than the van.

He pulled into the back of the parking lot and slipped into the rear of the van. Dr. Lecter took a moment to assess her condition. Not good; she was still ice cold to the touch and unmoving. Time was still of the essence.

Next to her cot was a Rubbermaid storage bin, the largest he had been able to find. Dr. Lecter unstrapped her from the cot and put her into the container, latching the lid closed. It was large enough to hold her when he folded her knees. Not the most dignified form of travel, he allowed, but it was certainly less conspicious than his attempting to maneuver an unconscious woman through the corridors of the hotel. After grabbing the rest of the things he would need, he headed inside. It was not at all convenient to balance his bulky load and fumble with the keycard at the exterior entrance and then at the door to his suite, but he managed.

Once inside, he pushed the door shut with his foot and carefully put down his load. To extract her from the bin took only a moment. Dr. Lecter carried her across the room to his fireplace, where there was a small coffee table. He laid the girl down atop it and took stock of the situation. _Now _was the time.

Her clothing struck him as quite odd until he realized that she wore two sets: a dirty shirt and jeans. A black dress was sandwiched between them, under the shirt but over the jeans. Under the jeans was a pair of black tights. She must have intended to cross the border dressed up a bit, to allay suspicion. A grubby T-shirt over her head had served for some scant protection against the cold, and a pair of filthy white socks did duty for gloves. It was all wet from the snow, and it would all have to go.

Once she was stripped, he took just one moment to look over her condition. There was some frostnip on her hands and face, but it was not too bad from the looks of it. No, the problem was core temperature – hypothermia.

He toweled her off and dressed her with clothing from his own suitcase: a pair of warm, fleecy sleep pants, thick socks, and a sweatshirt. Abandoning her for a moment, he turned to the fireplace. There was wood stacked nearby, which he stacked quickly. Rubbing alcohol from his medical supplies served to get the fire going in a satisfactory fireball. It was necessary practicality; there was little time.

He checked her temperature with an ear thermometer from the bag he had taken from the ambulance. It wasn't his preferred method, but it would have to do. Eighty-five degrees. Not good. All the same, she wouldn't be dead until she was warm and dead. Her heartbeat was irregular and thready. He would have liked an EKG, but he would have to do without one.

Dr. Lecter took the automated defibrillator and applied the paddles to her chest. Her body arched off the table as current crackled through it. He checked her pulse again. Still thready. He shocked her again, to the same result. On the third time, it began to improve.

Now he had to rewarm her. On the one hand, he supposed, it wouldn't be the end of the world if she died. He could simply wait until her body was good and dead, so that the marrow could not be harvested, and leave it where Clarice could easily find it. Or perhaps he could drag it out, seeing how long he could keep Clarice snapping at the bait. But he would prefer if she lived. It would be more deliciously fun for Clarice to be struggling for a goal that was actually there.

The first thing Dr. Lecter did was to take a breathing mask from the paramedic bag and slip the elastic strap around her head. She needed warmth now, and there was a simple way to provide that. Going into the bathroom revealed what he had hoped for – a hair dryer. Dr. Lecter brought this back to the table on which she lay. With duct tape, he constructed a crude but effective connection between the plastic tube of the mask and the hair dryer's nozzle. He turned it on. It would give her warm air to breathe, but that would not be enough.

Next came an IV line. Dr. Lecter was experienced at placing these, both from his medical practice and his hobbies. That took but a moment. The tubing was much longer than normally needed, but he had good reason for that. He noticed a fresh cut on her arm and frowned. Ruler-straight faded red lines flanked it.

Self-injury. How common. A little tedious, in fact. Right now it was the least of her problems.

This next part was harder, but he was looking forward to it. He needed access to her veins. Going in through the chest had its own problems. Her heartbeat was weak, and jamming a catheter into her chest seemed a poor idea. Better to leave it unmolested. He could go in through the femoral vein, in the thigh, but that would also have problems. He would need to remove her pants, and at some point she would recover consciousness. A woman who awoke to find a strange man leaning over her with her pants pulled down would be all too likely to get the wrong idea. After all, one never had a second chance to make a first impression.

That left the external jugular vein. He rather liked that idea; both for the venous access and the aesthetic it would provide. Dr. Lecter rolled her head to one side with great care. The vein was not hard to see under the pale skin of her neck. He considered: would he need to place two? No, a double-lumen needle should suffice.

He had nothing but his eyes and his medical knowledge, and so it was with great care and precision that Dr. Hannibal Lecter carefully pressed the needle into the girl's neck. Her flesh gave easily to the needle, and blood began to well up almost at once. Still he was precise as possible, not hurrying. Once it was in place, he wiped away some of the blood and attached the tubing to one of the ends. Then he ran the tubing and her IV lines over to the fireplace and taped them there with a bit of duct tape, low down near the fire where it would heat but not melt the tube. Then he attached a Y-connector and to that he attached a stainless steel hand pump that had come from his own supplies. Finally, he connected the end of the tube back to the other lumen.

He took a strap from his own bag and wrapped it around her forehead, pinning it to the table. It was very important that she not move, not with a catheter in her jugular vein. It could make an awful mess, and it wouldn't do. All the same, Dr. Lecter smiled. It was one thing to kill a policeman in battle, as he had done with the Suretè officer, Boyle, and Pembry. They were means to an end. It was another when you had the opportunity to appreciate the pleasant sensation that another person's life was in his hands. He had known it during the time he worked in the emergency room all those years ago, and he had known it while practicing his hobby. Taking care of Rinaldo Pazzi had been especially pleasurable because it had been both. It had been a long time, but it was still there. Whether or not this girl lived or died was solely his to decide. He could continue his attempt to save her, or he could simply place a hand over her mouth and nose and end things here and now. All his to decide. It was always a heady, pleasant sensation.

He smiled down at her, showing his small, even teeth.

He began to pump, which was not as efficient as he might have liked, but it did work. Blood came out of one end of the tube, traversed the tube, and ran past the fireplace, where it was heated by the roaring flames. Then it ran to the other tube and back into her body. Dr. Lecter sat and pumped with regularity to rival any machine. The aesthetic effect, he thought, was quite intriguing. The firelight lit up the dark blood, making it seem to glow a dark maroon, not that different from the way his own eyes reflected light. He watched it intently, quite entranced with the melding of blood and light. It was rare that the symbolism of fire giving life was so actual. Yes, placing the catheter in the neck had been exactly the right decision.

He kept one ear pricked for the sounds of sirens or the powerful engines of police cruisers. None came. All the better. His hand soon ached, but this was good exercise for it. He watched her blood supply slowly traverse the tube, glow, and re-enter her body. Would it do? He rather hoped so; the tatty journalists at the _National Tattler _would not be able to resist 'frozen food' jokes, which Dr. Lecter found tiresome already.

Hours passed a he sat his vigil without complaint. After a few, her temperature had risen noticeably, and after a few more she began to stir. Dr. Lecter was confident now that she would be able to tolerate a sedative. He injected it into the IV and she fell still at once.

Once she was warm enough to disconnect from her tubes, he found he had a new conundrum. Where was he to put her? The table she was on now did not suit him, not for when she finally awoke. The suite was his, and the bed thus also his. There was a sofa, true, but there were the psychological aspects to consider. Waking up on a couch suggested secondary status, homelessness, and did not suit the psychological play he wished to draw her into.

Yes, she would get the bed. For tonight, as a guest. He would retire to the couch. It was much better that way. Waking up next to a strange man would give her the wrong idea. Better for her to wake up comfortable, warm, and safe.

She weighed hardly anything. He placed her in the bed as if she were a child and arranged the covers over her. Then he took a long moment to examine his prize.

She was not classically beautiful. Her body was thin, as was her face. Her features were pinched and wan. Her nose had been broken and set badly; there was a noticeable hump. Dr. Lecter supposed that had happened in prison, as it wasn't in her mugshot. It gave her a rough air. Well, it was nothing that couldn't be repaired. In fact, he mused, he would be able to make her look quite different. That would help, and he was quite looking forward to that, actually. Then he retired to the couch, which he found perfectly acceptable.

He had done it, he realized. He had won. Tomorrow would begin other challenges, but he was confident that he would be able to overcome them. After all, he was a professional.

Where was Clarice, he wondered? He had taken an early lead, but eventually she would catch up. Still blundering around the backcountry a thousand miles away, trying to put the pieces together? Had she made it to Baltimore? Burlington? Derby Line? Perhaps he would have to check in on her progress when the opportunity presented itself. It did not really matter; second place was still second place. Oh, how she would seethe to know she was not going to win the crown!

It would be fun to watch, too. He thought back to Buffalo Bill; how he had planned and plotted to give Buffalo Bill to Clarice Starling without making it seem too obvious. How naïve she had seemed then, so earnest and desperate to save the victim. Now he intended to thwart her, and he had done half the job already.

He was pleasantly exhilarated from the night's activities. It was always good to know he had not lost his touch. And the glow of the blood in the firelight – ahhhh.

Dr. Lecter rolled over on his side and slid easily into a light sleep.

* * *

_Fucking tire, _Clarice thought irritably. _Fucking goddam stupid tire. _ Thank God she had a full-sized spare. But now she couldn't drive as fast as she would have liked to. If another tire blew, she'd be stuck.

Yet she could still cover ground, and the Mustang steadily headed north. She bent grimly over the wheel. The odds were pretty good that she had missed her target. But that didn't mean it wasn't too late. She hadn't failed. Not yet. No, according to the web searching Claire had done, she would be walking from Stanstead to Magog, which was twenty miles. If you walked it, that would mean...an awful long walk, anyway. Hours. That would mean she'd be cold, hungry, and tired. Cold, at least; after twenty minutes of changing the tire, Clarice could well testify to the unpleasant weather conditions around these parts. That would play into Clarice's hands. Even if Clarice didn't have the power of the law behind her, that didn't mean she wouldn't have the upper hand. She rehearsed what she would say: _It's cold out, you need a ride? Come on, you'll freeze to death. _Get her in the car, chat her up, buy the kid a cup of coffee and some donuts and she'd be set.

_Yeah, sure, _her mind jeered at her. _Riiiiiight. Since when were you ever good at chatting anybody up? You ain't Miss Congeniality, you know. Especially with the bad guys. _

She dismissed that as she got closer to Derby Line. There was an inspection station on the Interstate, but that wasn't where Claire was going. No, Claire was going to head for the library that was built on the border. There was another station there. Claire would have tried to sneak across on foot.

Would it have worked? Clarice didn't think it would. The Canadians were a little more open about their borders than the US was, but they weren't slouches, and they knew damn well that some people tried to take advantage of little border towns like that. If it was on the Internet, it wasn't only an ex-con from Virginia who could find it. With a little bit of luck, maybe they had turned her back at the border, or maybe better detained her. That would be a relief. Clarice could flash her credentials, and hopefully the Canadians would hand her back and that would be that.

The Mustang rumbled off the exit and slowed from highway speed for the first time in hours. The town was dead, nothing but black buildings and streetlights. That was good, she thought. If Claire was here, she'd stick out. It would only be her and any police out there, and they would want to see what she was doing.

The inspection station was open, thank God. Clarice had wondered if it might close. Luck had been with her. Clarice rolled down her window and smiled at the border patrol officer.

"Evening," said the uniformed officer.

"Yes, good evening," Clarice said.

"What's the purpose of your visit to Canada?" The words rolled off his tongue with the ease of long practice.

"Actually, sir, maybe you could help me out. I'm looking for someone. I think she might have crossed here. My name's Clarice Starling, and I'm with the FBI."

The man started, surprised. Well, Clarice thought, odds were the FBI didn't roll up in this tiny little burg very often.

"The FBI? Is there a problem?" He looked behind him.

"Not really. Can I pull over and come in? It's awful cold." Clarice smiled.

The fellow shrugged. "Sure. We're not too busy this time of night." He made a wide gesture at the empty, dark town. Clarice pulled around and parked her car. She brought her folder with her. The border patrol officer opened the door courteously and beckoned her inside.

"Do you want to talk to a supervisor? Should I get the RCMP?"

Clarice shook her head. She didn't want to get too many people involved; this would be better handled quietly. "Actually, this isn't a federal matter. Not really. I'm looking for this girl." She showed Claire's mugshot and saw recognition light his face immediately.

"She was here, sure," the man said. "Bout eight o'clock. Said she wanted to get some pizza. There's a pizza place up the street. Said her mom was coming to pick her up. I let her in – cold night to be outside, you know. I figured she didn't have a car, she couldn't get far." He scowled. "Shows what being a nice guy will get you, right? Is she wanted?"

Clarice shook her head. "No. Not really. She's a runaway. I'm a friend of the family. They're very worried about her. She had an argument with them and took off. She's got family up here."

The fellow nodded.

"I'd like to handle this quietly, if we could," Clarice said. "Look, I'd really rather not stick this kid with an Immigrations problem. The family just wants her to come back. You know how they are at that age." She essayed a smile, feeling her heart pound. Her inner Ardelia spoke up. _You know how they are at that age, Clarice. That age being eighteen, as in legal adult. _

"Is she underage?" The officer's face was tight.

"No, she's eighteen." _See? I didn't lie, did I? _"Look. Things got out of hand, I'm just trying to get this kid somewhere safe and sound before she freezes. Would you be willing to let me go look for her? She couldn't have gotten that far."

"You...," he swallowed. "You can't arrest her here, you know."

"I'm not gonna," Clarice said. _**Now **__you're lying. _Well, she wasn't going to do it until she was back across the border. Maybe she wouldn't even have to actually do it, maybe the threat would be enough. "What I'd like to do, sir, is just find her, talk to her, get her family on the phone, and get her back home."

"I can call the Suretè," he volunteered.

_Like hell, _Clarice thought. _Last damn thing I need is a bunch of other cops in the way._ "I'd rather not cause this kid any legal problems," Clarice demurred. "They'll have to bring her in, and it'll be a mess. Her family's law enforcement, you know. Just trying to spare them some embarrassment."

He studied her for a few minutes then, his face tense. Clearly he was weighing something in his mind. Finally he nodded. "All right. Have a look."

Clarice smiled brightly at him. "Thank you so much," she said. "I really appreciate it. I'm sure the family does too." She was also pretty sure he didn't want it widely known that he had waved a runaway across the border, either.

_Now what? What if you get her in the car and she asks for asylum? What are you going to do if she refuses to come back? _

She forced herself to dismiss that. There had to be _something _Claire Hansen would want. Food and warmth seemed likely possibilities. After that, well....there had to be something. She'd be nice. She'd be gentle. She'd been able to be civil with Evelda Drumgo, for Christ's sakes, and Evelda had raised being a bitch into performance art. And if that didn't work, well then, she'd figure something out.

Clarice slowly pulled out of the customs station and back onto the road, driving carefully and slowly. No need to piss off the local police by driving like a madman. She reached for the printouts she had made of Claire's web searches and looked. Google maps, walking directions. Everything Claire needed, and everything Clarice needed to find her. There was her route, in black and white.

Outside of town, Clarice thought that this part of Quebec looked an awful lot like rural Virginia, or those part of West Virginia that weren't in the mountains. Except for the snow and the cold. But the dark country roads guarded by silent trees, the fields, the occasional house, oddly solemn in the darkness – all that seemed familiar.

She reached over to fumble for the printouts and stared at them. Google Maps. Complete with walking directions, even. Even the street names were familiar: Willow, which became Mountainview, then Maple. Why did they use English names? Wasn't it a French-speaking country, or province, or whatever?

She smiled ruefully at herself. It was silly to get all worked up over that, but she was pretty tired and irritated after so many hours of driving. There was also the frustration of knowing that she could've avoided all this if she'd just put the pieces together a little quicker. Or if the family had bothered to mention that oh, by the way, Mom was from Quebec.

Clarice drove on a few more miles, peering into the darkness hoping to catch sight of someone walking. She had no luck, and that irritated the hell out of her more. The kid had to be around here somewhere. She was on foot, for God's sake. She had no way of escaping Clarice. Unless, of course, she scurried back into the treeline, in which case finding her – and catching her – would mean a bitch of a time. What was the next road name?

_"Rue de Tomifobia," _she said. Road of Tomifobia, Tomifobia Road. What the hell kind of name was Tomifobia? What did it mean, fear of guys named Tommy?

She reached for her notebook as she drove, flipping through it with one hand. What had Sarah Hansen said her mother's name was? Julie Mennerd. Didn't sound French, but it might be Menard or something like that. She'd have to see what she could find. Immigration ought to know something if she'd been in the US long enough to have three kids. Then she remembered that she was doing this privately, and wouldn't have the same access she had as an FBI agent.

_I wonder if this is how Rinaldo Pazzi felt, _she thought idly, and then dismissed it. It wasn't the same. Not at all. Rinaldo Pazzi had been a dirty cop, one who neglected his duty. She was trying to save a life. Not the same at all.

For a few more miles, there was nothing but the dark country night and the white snow. It was pretty, Clarice thought abstractly. Lots of trees. Even the snow wouldn't be so bad if you had warm clothes. And like most country roads, it was pretty deserted. _Well, scotch that, _she thought as she looked ahead. Not _quite _deserted.

Clarice looked ahead and scowled. There was a cop car up ahead; a Ford Crown Victoria, the very same model of prowl car used by hundreds of American police departments. Its lights were going. There was an ambulance parked in front of it, and its lights were going too. The strobing lights threw red and blue flashes across the dark night and white snow in an epileptic nightmare.

But dread puddled in her gut. Something wasn't right. Something was very wrong. There was a prowl car here, and an ambulance...but no civilians. No cops or ambulance crew, either. No people. They should have been out and moving around, doing something, and yet the scene was silent and motionless as a graveyard. No. Not right at all.

Clarice pulled over to the side of the road, noticed that the ambulance doors were open, and then saw an unmoving form sprawled by the side of the road. She swallowed hard and got out of the car. The weight of her .45 on her hip was a comfort as she surveyed the scene.

The ambulance's engine was running. The doors were open. Not good. Slowly, she approached, wondering if she ought to draw or not. It wasn't her territory. All the same, this didn't feel right. Not right at all.

Inside, the ambulance was a slaughterhouse. The driver lolled back in his seat, his eyes staring blankly at the treeline. Blood was splashed all over the dashboard and soaked his shirt. The cold steel smell, so familiar to her, permeated the air. The two attendants inside were slumped on the floor of the ambulance. Blood was pooled on the floor here, too. _Not dry yet, _Clarice thought distantly. Then she turned away from the ambulance and saw the still body, lying in the snow in front of the patrol car.

"Oh, _shit," _Clarice said. "What the fuck did you do?"

The cursing didn't help the feeling of weakness in her knees.

She didn't _know _that Claire was involved in this, but it seemed to be too hideous a coincidence. She was little, sure, but that didn't mean shit. Clarice had seen women of her target's size and weight take four full-grown men to hold them down. All the same, it might have been possible for her to get the jump on one man. Four? That seemed a lot less likely.

She glanced down at the footprints. It was hard to see anything in only the light of her flashlight, but the prints at the driver's door looked too big to be Claire's. But she couldn't do this on her own.

She didn't want to trample all over the scene, so she made her way carefully back to the patrol car and looked at it carefully. The door hung open and the engine was still running. The radio chattered at her in metallic French, too fast for her to follow any of it.

Clarice felt her head spin and bit her lip hard. She had to keep it together. But yet she could feel everything spinning apart. Her duty as a law enforcement officer had just gone smack up against her job of finding this kid. She reached for the microphone, stopped, and then sighed. No other way around this. There would be no quiet way of handling this. Or maybe there could be, she thought desperately. Maybe they would understand. Maybe there was some way of quietly getting Claire Hansen back where she belonged so she could save her sister's life.

Clarice picked up the mic and grumbled a curse into the dark night. Was this a huge mistake? Was doing this going to endanger a life? For a moment she entertained the mad idea of closing the door, getting back in her car, and continuing on her search. But it seemed she had no choice. Only one course of action. She keyed the mic and gathered herself.

"This is Agent Clarice Starling of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," she said dully.

After a moment, a voice answered her in French, which she couldn't make heads or tails of. Probably wanting to know what the hell she was doing on their frequency.

She spoke the words that would make any officer who understood them come running. "You guys need to get to Tomifobia Road right away. Officer down."


	10. Ally

Warmth and pain.

Those were the first things she was aware of. First, warmth. There was the pleasant feeling of warmth inside dry clothes, and blankets covering her. She could feel the smooth cloth of a sheet pulled over her, and on her torso was a thick sweatshirt. That much was very nice.

But there was also pain. Pain in her hands, pain in her chest, and especially in her neck. She felt very tired, even though she had slept for some time. More than tired: bone weary. Her arms felt heavy and did not want to move. She wanted very badly to roll over and go back to sleep.

But there was more than that. As much as she might want to go back to sleep, she couldn't. Claire opened her eyes and surveyed her surroundings. She was in a bed. In a bedroom of some kind, with the great blank glass eye of a television staring at her from an armoire. Not a hospital room or a prison cell...but where was this? The last thing she remembered was staggering through the snow. How had she ended up here?

The bedroom she was in was tucked into the corner of a larger room, separated by double doors which were currently thrown open. In the larger room was a couch, a coffee table, a fireplace, and a small writing desk. A telephone sat atop it. Looking to her side revealed a nightstand with another phone. Claire blinked at that for a few moments, wondering if she ought to call for help. She withdrew her hands from under the sheet and paused. Call for help? Who, exactly? The police? Not too likely. She withdrew her hand.

Claire drew her legs up and slid them over the edge of the bed. Her clothes, backpack, and purse were nowhere to be seen. The clothes she wore were unfamiliar, as was the room. Addled with disorientation, she tried to stand. Her knees wobbled and she sat down hard on the bed.

From just outside the double doors came a ceramic _clink. _

Claire's eyes widened and her heart began to larrup in her chest. She forced her legs to support her and grabbed the wall hard. Her eyes ranged back and forth. What was there to defend herself with? She reached for the drawer of the nightstand, which revealed a Gideon's Bible, a pad of paper, and a cheap ballpoint pen. She seized the pen and clenched it in her fist like a dagger.

A man entered the room.

He was not very tall, wearing a simple crisp white shirt and sharply creased dress pants. In his hands was a tray containing a white carafe and two mugs. He looked at her calmly, as if he understood perfectly what was going on.

"Good morning," he said courteously. His voice was sophisticated and had a slight British accent; not quite the _good mawning _she was used to hearing, but close, and certainly not like a Yankee said it. "You're awake. How are you feeling?"

Claire took a step back and eyed him. She reached up to her neck, her fingers touching gauze and tape. It ached a great deal and hurt worse when she touched it, and she pulled her fingers away. Her other hand clutched the pen.

The man observed her for a few moments, nothing her silence. "I assure you I'm not going to hurt you," he said. "Please. Why don't you sit down? I'm sure you have many questions."

She did. _Who are you? Where's my stuff? Where am I? What do you want with me? What did you do to me? What's going to happen to me? _

Her voice came weak and faltering. "Where...where is this place?"

He nodded. His voice was gentle. "You're in Magog. Magog, Quebec, where I expect you were trying to reach last night. You collapsed outside along the road. I found you, and brought you here. It's all right. You're perfectly safe."

"What...?" she trailed off.

"You're still recovering," the man said. "Not surprising. You'd almost frozen to death. Here. Sit down on the bed, if you like, or we can go into the other room. I'll explain everything over coffee."

Claire did not want to get on the bed, not in front of a strange man. Certainly not. Thinking of that made her realize that if she wasn't wearing her own clothes, maybe he'd already done...God knows what. She took a faltering step back.

"Come along," he said, impatience growing in his tone. He watched her for a moment and gestured at her shaking fist. "If you like that pen, you may have it."

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked, hearing the shakiness in her voice and more afraid for it.

"Let's start with a cup of coffee," he said. "This way, please."

She wavered a moment more, calculating. He was larger than she, but most people were, and he seemed friendly, and she felt awful. If she fought him, she wasn't sure she could get away. Part of her screamed that she was being an idiot, but she had the pen, and if he tried anything, well...she'd just try her damndest to jam it into his eye.

He led her from the bedroom into a larger room, with a fireplace and a couch and a coffee table. He sat down on the couch, waving her to an overstuffed chair sitting at a right angle to it. Claire sank into it shakily, still feeling utterly exhausted.

He poured two cups of coffee from the carafe and gestured for her to sit on the couch. Claire did, putting the pen down where she could grab it again if she had to. She took the cup and put it down, studying it to see if there was any sort of residue on it. Roofies, or something. Then again, she'd just been out cold for God knew how long in front of this man.

For his own part, the man took a healthy swig from his own mug and smiled at her, as if to assure her it wasn't poisoned.

"Now, then," he said pleasantly. "We haven't been introduced. My name is Graham. Dr. Will Graham."

"I'm Claire," she said, hedgingly. Then, automatically, "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is all mine. Do you take milk or sugar in your coffee?"

"Yes, please," she said, and closed her eyes. This whole thing seemed so damned weird to her. Months of prison, the desperate flight of the past few days, her freezing cold welcome to her new country...and now here she was in a fancy hotel drinking coffee with some guy she'd never met before. Part of her was busy trying to figure out if she was going to have to fight this guy for her life, and yet here she was, cranking out the etiquette that had been drilled into her.

He added milk and sugar to her cup, and smiled gently. Then he reached down, grabbed something, and placed it in front of her. Claire looked down at it for a beat before recognizing her poor old battered cheap purse.

"I'm sure you're wondering what happened to your things," Dr. Graham said pleasantly. "Here is your purse. As for your clothing, your dress is in the closet. Your shirt and jeans are in the hotel laundry. I expect them back at any time now. I assure you, you're not in danger. My intent is to help."

Claire paused for another moment, stared down into her mug, and took a cautious sip of the coffee. It tasted quite pleasant, light and sweet. It was hot and good, and she took a bigger sip. Dr. Graham smiled. She took a moment to study him. He was not a large man, not physically imposing. He was well dressed – the dress pants and shirt looked expensive. His hair was black and shiny, with a bit of a widow's peak.. His features were sharply defined and quite sleek. A handsome guy.

Was he a cop? It didn't seem so. Cops were blocky and muscular, and most of them opted for the simple buzz cut. This man had introduced himself as a doctor, and while cops could pretend to be other things, hardly any of them would claim to be a doctor. And cops probably wouldn't wear expensive clothes like that. Cops wouldn't offer her coffee or treat her this nicely, either.

Was he a bounty hunter? A private investigator? That might be possible. Be nice to her so that she'd go quietly, then _bam. _

"You...you found me?" She was vaguely aware that she probably sounded like a total idiot, but there wasn't much to be done for it. She felt sludgy and slow and even moving hurt.

"Yes. You'd collapsed by the side of the road. Walking outside for hours in this type of weather can be dangerous. I couldn't help but notice you didn't have a coat."

Claire took a sip of her coffee and thought for a moment. Now he would want to know why she didn't have a coat, for which there could only be two reasons. One was the truth: that she was on the run from a place where it never got this cold and she'd never thought about it until it was too late. The other was that she was a colossal dumbass. _Why oh why didn't I swipe one at that college? I'd have made it just fine. _

"I, uh, I lost mine," she began lamely.

"Oh, I know why you didn't have one," " he said offhandedly. "You aren't from around here, and you hadn't counted on the cold snap. There's no need to tiptoe. I know who you are. You're Claire Hansen, lately of Coltsburg, Virginia. Recently released from prison. Making your way up here, the better to evade your estranged family."

Claire pulled away. Fear bolted through her. Her fingers scrabbled for the pen, which slipped away and fell to the floor. She stood up and felt her legs lose strength, her spirit afraid but her flesh weak. "How did you know that?" she spat. "Are you working for my father?"

Dr. Graham chuckled. "Working for him? Absolutely not. There's no need to be alarmed. Sit down, please."

"I want to know what the _hell _is going on here," she panted.

Dr. Graham got up and walked over to her, completely calm. He took hold of her upper arms gently. There was plenty of strength in his grip. It felt like he could rip her arms right off like turkey legs if he wanted to, and Claire realized there wasn't a hell of a lot she could do to stop him.

"Please lower your voice," he said archly. "There's no need to disturb the other guests. I'm sure you don't want the police here. What you need to understand is that _neither do I." _

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded.

"I told you. I'm Dr. Will Graham."

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"I'm going to help you," Dr. Graham said. "Now please. I understand you're frightened, and no doubt you think I was hired by your father to deprive you of your sanctuary and return you to his bailiwick. I assure you that's not the case. I'm going to _help _you stay out of his hands, and whatever minions he sends to pursue you. I'll explain everything. But first you must _sit down." _

Claire sat down, trembling, reminded sourly of the powerlessness of prison. She bit her lip and looked away, determined not to let herself think about that. Dr. Graham sat down on the couch, smiled, and was calm as could be again, just like that.

"I'm sorry," Claire said shakily.

"That's all right. I can imagine how you would be distrustful," Dr. Graham said. "You've had quite a difficult time of it. You fear suffering at the hands of those who have already made you suffer. Rightly so. Anyone would, in your position. Let me ask you something, though."

"All right," Claire said, trying not to tremble. She could feel control sliding out of her grip. Part of her wanted to simply break down in tears, and she fought it back grimly.

"Do you think you're the _only _one who's suffered at their hands?"

Claire stopped. "They...they won't ever lay off me. It's not like everyone else. It's...it's personal with them."

"To an extent, yes. The esteemed judge does have a personal grudge. But let me tell you what happened to me, and I think you'll understand."

"It's true that I did track you here. However, I'm not a police officer, or a bounty hunter, or anything like that. I am a psychiatrist. I practiced in New York City for many years. I had a life much like anyone: I had my practice, and I had a daughter. I've been divorced for many years. My daughter was a few years older than you." He paused. "Molly. My lovely Molly." He swallowed once, and Claire suddenly had a sinking feeling. "My daughter was much like you. She was twenty, and in college. And like you, she had the bad luck to fall on the wrong side of the Hopewell County court."

"It was the spring break of her sophomore year. She was traveling down to Florida, and got off the highway. I don't know exactly how or why she ended up there. Perhaps she got off the highway; she always wanted to see America. At any rate...," Dr. Graham stopped and visibly composed himself. "She was driving at night, along a rural highway. She struck a deputy sheriff with her car. It was one of those dark country roads, and the damned fool was outside of his car with no lights on."

"It was an accident. A tragic accident, to be sure. She meant no harm. But they wanted blood, and blood they got. They charged her with murder." He shook his head. "Preposterous," he said.

"Murder? For hitting someone with her car?"

Dr. Graham nodded. "It didn't make any sense to me, either. Certainly, sue the insurance. Give her tickets. Take her license away. But murder....absolutely not. There was no _crime. _It was an accident. But they didn't see it that way. They had a yankee – someone different – in their clutches, and they strove to take full advantage. They charged her with murder and jailed her."

Claire tilted her head.

"The judge assigned to the case...was your father. Gordon Hansen." The contempt in his voice was palpable. "He refused to grant her bail. He claimed she was a flight risk. It was...utterly ridiculous. I would have posted whatever amount was necessary. At least, at first."

"Weeks went by...then a few months. They dragged their feet. I obtained an attorney. I strove to come to a reasonable solution. Still, everything remained maddeningly slow, and the judge continued to maintain the charge of murder even when it was clearly unwarranted. I believe they simply wanted to keep her in jail."

Claire nodded slowly. Her father had refused to help her in any way after her stepmother's death. They had denied her bail, too. She'd known he would have been part of that. He had judged her guilty, and after that the legal trial was largely a formality. Fortunately, her lawyer had been excellent for a public defender. He had objected to everything he could, and it was the speedy trial violation that had been reversible.

She'd always wondered if they'd done that on purpose. Mr. Jenkins had explained it to her: Virginia took speedy trial seriously. You could be guilty as sin, and a speedy trial violation could get you off the hook entirely, as she was now. Prosecutors screamed about it all the time. They got to save face; they could loudly pound their chests and say they'd done their jobs, but that mean ol' court of appeals had ruled against them. It had made a certain sort of sense to her.

What had happened to Christine had been an accident. A sad accident, yes, but an accident. Her boyfriend hadn't meant to push her down the stairs; he'd done so in a moment's anger when her stepmother had slapped her. She, herself, had no idea he was going to do it. So it was pretty simple. Rather than run the risk of realizing that they'd sent her to prison over a freaking accident, they left open a way to save face. If the appellate courts didn't agree with her, she'd have stayed in prison. If they had and the supreme court had reinstated her conviction – which it often did – they were still good. Even now, when the worst had happened for them, they got to save face. The meat of the appellate decision that had set her free had also focused only on that point: "Because we agree with Petitioner that she did not receive a speedy trial, it is unnecessary to address her other points of appeal." Boom. Those other facts, like the fact that it had been a _goddam accident _and her stepmother would have been alive if she'd kept her hands to herself, no longer mattered.

"I was meeting with her attorney, and was intending to revisit the subject of bail," Dr. Graham said. "It must have been just when your conviction was first overturned. The judge was in a rage. I remember sitting outside with my attorney. You could hear him yelling in his chambers. 'Find a way to reinstate the conviction', he said. 'Get it in front of the Supreme Court. Put her away forever. I want her to rot for what she did.' He was insane."

Hearing that hurt, although she'd never expected anything different. Tears welled behind her eyes and she forced them back down.

"I remember that hearing," he said, and his eyes grew distant. "I remember the despair in my daughter's eyes, and I remember how cavalier the judge was, simply dismissing the bail request out of hand. All he said was that nothing had changed; the charges stood and she was a flight risk. I remember how resigned my daughter was. By that time, she had known full well what a mockery of justice this would be. We had a few moments before they dragged her back to the cell. She looked me in the eye and said that everything was going to be all right." He swallowed. "She had reached her limit. She could no longer tolerate this mockery, or the pain of being in jail.." He paused a beat, and somehow Claire knew before he said anything. "She...she hanged herself that night."

Claire nodded slowly. Jailhouse suicides happened. She'd seen one.

"I could not understand it. I loved my daughter, and I would have done anything to spare her pain. He, on the other hand, seemed to hate you and wanted only to craft your doom. I would have paid the family compensation. I would have served her sentence in her place I would have done anything. Afterwards, I was sick with rage. I wanted to kill him. I'm sorry if that offends you."

Claire shook her head. "I understand," she said.

"I thought about it. But if I had, then all that would happen would be that I would be in a cell, perhaps facing the death sentence. He would be lionized as a hero. No, there had to be another way. I had loved my daughter and he took her from me. That was a game at which two could play."

Claire did not like the sound of that. She scanned the room, looking for a way to bolt.

"No, no. I can see you're afraid. Not like he had done to me. No, I would cheat him of his prey. I had made plans to spirit my daughter away, if only I could get her bail. Now, my revenge will take a different form." He smiled at her in an odd way, half tender and half angry. Claire shivered.

"Don't be afraid," Dr. Graham said. "I do not intend to harm you, even so much as a single hair on your head. Quite the opposite. I can help you."

"Help me?" Claire said, and sipped her coffee. It didn't taste like there was anything in it, but you never knew. All the same, the story had drawn her in. And if this man had intended to drug her, well, he had already had ample opportunity to do that.

"Indeed," Dr. Graham said. "I said that I would have played by the rules. That was true...at first. Once it became obvious that there would be no justice for her, I simply wanted to get her out. I had made plans to flee with my daughter. On bail would have been easiest. Anything, really. I would have bribed a guard, if that would do the trick. I needed only enough time to get her out and to an airport. We would then travel to another country, obtain new identities, and live out our lives in peace, far from that..._court." _Venom dripped from the last word. "I had some cash at hand already, sold my practice, and made a few...interesting connections." He let out a sigh, and gave her a pained smile.

"It is too late for Molly," he said. "It isn't too late for you. I can help you. I understand why you came here. You believed you would be safe from your tormentors, did you not?"

Claire shivered again. Was he saying she wasn't? Had all this been for naught? "Well, yes sir," she said.

"That's true...to an extent. But if they know that you're up here, they can still make things difficult for you. The border is not an invulnerable shield. But imagine another way. Imagine if you simply....disappeared. Or perhaps better said, if Claire Hansen simply disappeared. Instead, somewhere else, another woman came into being. A woman with another name, and papers to back up that name. She would have been raised in America, but come to Canada for reasons of her own. Perhaps a bad run of luck, let's say, trying to put her life back together. But of course, as long as she stayed out of trouble, none of that would really matter." He smiled, his eyelids lowering like shutters. "She'd have a face somewhat different from yours. Different enough, so long as attention wasn't called to her. She would enroll in school, first high school. Then university, if her grades were good enough. Imagine that. Not just a new country, a new face, a new name, and new building blocks of a background. Why, such a young woman would have the world at her feet, wouldn't she?"

Claire swallowed. It sounded good, all right. It sounded _great. _Almost too good to be true. "And you...you would do all that for me?"

Dr. Graham nodded.

"What would you want for all that?" she asked.

Dr. Graham smiled, his eyes lidded and somehow frightening. "I would want you to make the most of the opportunity," he said.

"I guess I don't see what you get out of it," she said, wondering if she was being galactically stupid. _Someone offers to help you and you're quizzing them on their motives? What are you, nuts? _

Dr. Graham did not take offense. "I see," he said. "Let me explain. I am at heart a law-abiding man. I cannot strike back directly. I'd end up caught, and I'd go to prison. Not worth it. I wanted to see my daughter grow up and live a long, happy life. He took that away from me. He seemed to hate you and wish to destroy your life. So I will take that opportunity away from him. All the powers of his office, and those of his favored children will avail him of nothing. He'll issue warrants, detainers, whatever he likes – but for all his grasping, he'd never have more than empty air."

It fell into place with a dull _thump. _All this was about revenge on her father. Claire felt vaguely disappointed for a moment. Did anyone, anywhere, ever actually give a crap about her? Or were the only people who'd ever treated her decently were the few friends she'd made in prison?

All the same, it wasn't like anyone else was offering to help, and with a total of twelve dollars left in her pocket she didn't have a lot of other options.

Heedless of her reverie, Dr. Graham continued. "What I will do for you is this: first, we will arrange papers for you. That will actually be the hardest part. Once that is accomplished, the rest will fall into place quite neatly. We'll also need to change your appearance. Then, once we have papers, we'll get you into school. If you make the grades for university, you shall have that, too. I believe that you can, if you want it."

"What I want from you is for you to understand that this is a very serious matter. I can give you better cards than you were dealt, but you're the one who has to play them right. Play them right and you can have all the things that you might want – a career, a husband, children, a house, grandchildren on your knee. You can live out your life under an assumed name, and be buried an old woman mourned by your grandchildren who will never know about your prior life. If you make a mistake, the penalties can be dire and it can all be lost in very short order. So you'll need to remember some things."

He leaned forward then, and his eyes flared, making Claire suddenly very nervous. She could feel the gnawings and yammerings of a panic attack rising in her and forced herself to breathe.

"First rule. Know your backstory. Know it by heart, and keep it simple. You lived in the United States with your mother, say, you made some mistakes, and you came here to rebuild your life. It will be your life story from now on. You need to be able to reel it off flawlessly and believably. Second rule. Don't get too close to less people know about you, the better. Keep your personal business private. Don't ever think anyone can be trusted with the knowledge of who you really are. Not friends, not boyfriends, not co-workers, not your husband, not your children – _no one. _Today's best friend can become tomorrow's enemy. Third rule. Don't make any tracks you don't have to. Stay off the Internet, any of those social networking sites – at least not yet. If you must have one, keep it very vague. Fourth rule: change your old habits. They can be used to track you. I understand you practice a different religion – the newspapers were rather hysterical about it. "

"I'm a Wiccan," Claire said. "That's...well, that's about the earth. The natural order." He didn't seem the judgmental type, but it might not be the wisest thing to go too much into detail. People heard about spells and circles got entirely the wrong idea.

"Fine," Dr. Graham said. "Do it privately. Don't go on the Internet seeking out Wiccan boards, don't go looking for Wiccan churches, or anything like that. You'd also be well advised to avoid the gothic subculture."

_Covens, _Claire thought, then dismissed it. It made sense. She would miss it, but if she had to give it up, she could. She could be a solitary practitioner. Lots of people did that.

"Fifth rule. Avoid trouble. Don't go out drinking with your friends. If you must, nurse a few drinks all night. Don't use drugs. All the things they tell you in school; it's doubly important for someone in hiding. Don't engage in petty crime. I don't know how you financed your trip up here, but--,"

_ "_I lifted a few wallets, back in Richmond," Claire said, only realizing a second too late that she might not want to admit that.

_ "_Fine. You did what you had to do. But not anymore. You won't need to worry about money; I will help you until you're in a position where you don't need my help. But you cannot afford to be arrested and fingerprinted, even for petty things like being drunk in public. I don't need to tell you what that will mean."

Acid bubbled in her throat and she tasted coppery fear on her tongue. Jeez, was he _trying _to make her have a panic attack? No, she scolded herself, he didn't know.

_ "_Sixth rule, and most important. Never look back. Never. I can't stress it enough. That's how most fugitives are caught. Don't write anyone you knew in prison. Don't look up anyone you went to high school with. Don't try to get the newspapers or anything from home. You need to make a clean break from that, starting now. And never..._never..._entertain the idea of contacting your family, even to tell them you want nothing to do with them and not to look for you. They're looking for you now. They'll probably always be looking. They may hire investigators to find you. They may even come up with heart-wrenching tales about how they _need _to talk to you. Don't take the chance. It's assuredly a lie, and you'll pay a terrible price for it."

Claire nodded again, barely aware she was doing it.

"I can do that," she said.

Dr. Graham nodded and seemed pleased. Before he spoke, a knock came at the door. Claire gasped and jumped back, her eyes wide. Her heart began pounding again. What the hell was going on? Where was that pen? Was this all a cruel joke?

Dr. Graham walked to the door, opened it, and spoke briefly with whoever was outside. A few moments later, he returned with a plastic bag. He looked at her quizzically.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Claire rose and tottered, her knees giving way on her. She spilled to the floor, feeling her arms and legs thrum with useless adrenalin. He simply put the bag down and crouched beside her.

"It's all right," he said calmly. "That was just the hotel laundry delivering your clothes." He showed her the bag, which did indeed contain her clothes. They looked a lot better clean and pressed than they ever had.

"I'm sorry," Claire said, and felt about ready to just give into the hysterics and bawl like a little kid until her mind just dissolved. "I just..I...this whole thing...,"

_Hunted, _was the word that came to mind. _I'm being hunted. _But she didn't want to tell him that. He'd think she was crazy. After all, normal people didn't freak out the minute they saw a uniform or heard a knock at the door. But it wasn't anything she could control; it just happened all by itself.

"It's all right," Dr. Graham said in a comforting tone. "You've had quite a rough time of it. Here. Why don't you put on your jeans. You can keep that sweatshirt for now." He gestured at the bedroom and politely turned his back.

Claire stumbled into the bedroom. It took longer than normal to get her jeans on. Her hands were still trembling and she still felt exhausted.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked. "Magog social services?"

Dr. Graham smiled and shook his head. "Certainly not," he said. He took a long coat from the closet and handed it to her. "No need to aim that low. Here, take this. We ought to be going now."

"Where?" she asked again.

Dr. Graham paused. "You can't go very far, not now," he observed. "You need some rest, warmth, good food. Also, we'll have to begin the process of getting you papers. Tell me, do you speak French?"

"No, sir," Claire admitted. "My mom left before she taught me much. I took it in school, but I can't really speak it."

Dr. Graham cogitated for a moment and then dipped his head in a nod. "All right, then. For now, we'll head to Montreal. There are plenty of English speakers there, you won't draw attention." He took another coat from the closet for himself, a short leather jacket which fit him quite well. Then he reached down and took two bags, one over his shoulder and one held easily in his hand. The weight didn't seem to bother him. Claire took her own purse and backpack, which seemed to be filled with lead ingots.

"You mean right now?" she asked, feeling stupid and inadequate, like a schoolgirl unable to grasp a simple lesson.

"Oh yes," Dr. Graham said. "Checkout is in half an hour, and there's no need to spend more time here. There's much to do."

Claire walked outside behind him, whimpering a little when the cold air struck her. She pressed the coat around her, grateful for its thickness and warmth. He took her to an old van that seemed like an odd choice for a doctor to drive. Then again, she reflected, that might not be a bad thing.

He slid open the door, put his bags in, then took hers. Then he opened the passenger door for her, a courtesy she had not been extended in so long that she simply stared for a few seconds before realizing he meant for her to get in, not him.

Dr. Graham ignored it, simply walking around the van and getting in the driver's seat. He started the van and rummaged for a moment in his bag. He withdrew two pill vials, extracted one pill each, and handed them to her.

"There will be juice or coffee in the lobby to wash that down with, while I check out," he said calmly.

Claire stared dubiously at the pills. "What are they?"

"Vicodin and Ativan," Dr. Graham said. "Vicodin, for pain, and Ativan for nervousness."

"Nervousness?" she asked, a bit suspicious. Was this it? Take these two magic pills, wake up naked and hog-tied to a bed with a rubber ball stuffed in her mouth? But then, if Dr. Graham had wanted to do such things to her, he'd already had the chance to do exactly that. No need to charm her with coffee and laundry service.

"You don't have to take them, if you don't wish to," Dr. Graham said. Weird, how he seemed to know what she was thinking. "It's just that for the past few days – indeed, the past few years – you've had quite a bit of pain, fear, and stress. This would alleviate that."

Claire paused, thinking it over even while he pulled around to the front of the hotel. She followed him inside dutifully, swaying a little, still feeling punchy and exhausted. Should she take them? Should she not? Was Dr. Graham trustworthy? Was this too good to be true? Or was she going to end up with her throat slit in a snowbank?

She found herself at the continental breakfast counter without realizing she'd gone over there, staring blankly at the coffee thermos and the yellow and orange pitchers of juice, pills pressing into her palm. Decision time.

Or was it possible, just maybe, that one person on the earth didn't hate her? Actually wanted to make her lot in life easier instead of harder? That maybe, just maybe, someone out there might extend a helping hand instead of a backhand?

The pills felt smooth and hard on her tongue, and the orange juice she washed them down with was strong and sweet. Claire paused, waited for a moment, and then followed Dr. Graham back to the van. There was a feeling of resignation: her path was set now. Whatever happened, happened.

The van pulled out of the parking lot and headed for a highway. Dr. Graham didn't speak much as he drove, focusing on the road. That was okay with Claire; she was too weary to offer much conversation. After a while, she felt withdrawn from it all. The ache in her body eased off. She could also feel the panic fade to a distant memory. It was unlikely she would fall asleep, she thought, but she just felt calm and peaceful. Throughout this whole trip, she'd tried to convince herself that things would get better, but now she felt like they actually would.

Someone to _help. _Someone who had suffered as she had – perhaps not the same, but enough. Someone who had lost everything, like she had. Someone who might grease the skids a little for her, and spare her pain and suffering. Someone who would help. Someone who would make it possible for her to leave her past behind, and start a new and hopeful future. Someone who would stand with her rather than against her, and help her evade _them. _The thought was immensely comforting, and she didn't want to let it go.

As the van rumbled north, she leaned her head back and thought that things really _would _get better.


End file.
